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Stellaris Dev Diary #111 - Anomaly Rework & Expanded Exploration

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today, we're going to start talking about the 2.1 'Niven' update, which will be the next major update after 2.0. At this point I cannot give you any details on the exact nature of the update or when it's arriving, but I *can* talk about some changes we're making and new features we're introducing in regards to exploration, galaxy generation and anomalies.

Anomaly Changes
In 2.1, we're changing the way anomalies work in a few ways. First and foremost, we are removing the concept of failure risk - we found that the possibility to fail on anomalies added little to the game in terms of interesting choices, and mostly frustrated players or made them wait with researching said anomalies until their chance of success was maximized. As such, instead of making it so that anomalies have a failure risk based on scientist skill level, we've instead made it so that the time it takes to research an anomaly is heavily dependent on the scientist skill versus the level of the anomaly - researching a level 2 anomaly with a level 2 scientist will be a comparatively quick affair, while attempting a level 10 anomaly with the same scientist can take a very, very long time, and might mean that it is better to return to it later with a more skilled scientist, so not to hold up your early exploration.
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(Note: Not final numbers, etc)

As part of this we've also added an anomaly tracker tab to the situation log. The anomaly tracker will keep track of anomalies that you have discovered but not yet researched and easily let find and you return to them.
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Hyperlane Generation
Another thing that is changing in 2.1 is the way the Hyperlane network is generated. Rather than simply attempting to connect stars to nearby stars, we've created a new generation algorithm that builds up 'clusters' of stars with a high degree of internal connectivity, that are connected to each other by thinner 'highways' which form natural chokepoints. These chokepoints are also registered as such by the game, allowing us to find actual chokepoint systems and avoid placing Leviathans and other powerful space monsters there, as well as improving the AI's ability to detect suitable spots for defensive starbses. The hyperlane connectivity setting will determine the level of connectivity between clusters, and thus how frequent and easily circumvented chokepoints are.
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(Note: Image is not final. We're still working on the algorithm)

As part of this it will now also be possible for modders to easily generate systems and clusters of systems that are not connected to the main hyperlane network.

New Stars & Systems
Lastly for today, we've added a bunch of new system and star types to the game. First out are binary and trinary star systems - systems containing more than a single star. These systems come in a variety of configurations, and will often contain more planets and resources than conventional, single-star systems. We've also added some new star types to the game in the form of Brown Dwarves (not technically stars, I know) and Class M red super-giants. We've also made it possible to generate more than a single asteroid belt in a system, and created some new mineral-rich asteroid-heavy systems. Finally, there are some new unique systems to find with large amounts of resources in them, guarded by powerful space creatures.
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That's all for today! Next week we're going to be talking about something just a little bit mysterious called the L-Cluster... see you then!
 
I'm going to miss anomaly failures, actually, I think you should hold on to those and have them be an ever-present risk. It wasn't fun exactly to lose a scientist or research ship, but it did add tension to the game and it made space exploration feel more uninviting and dangerous, as it should. Like when people set out to explore the world in wooden ships in the olden days, setting off into deep space should have risks associated with it, some of which shouldn't be under your control.

Perhaps add an option to tackle anomalies faster, with a risk of failure, or have species/scientist traits that affect, or even eliminate anomaly failure chance? Then players can decide for themselves if they want the current risky approach, or the new system where anomalies seem 100% safe, but cautious scientists always take their time? Should sort of balance itself out given that one empire will take longer on each anomaly, while the other will have to periodically replace scientists/science ships ;) .

Other than that, while I dislike the bottleneck-style gameplay approach in a 4X space game that should be about free movement (and so on :p ), I have to admit that those "constellations" in the OP really look great.


Edit: could you implement a system where the game can read an image file and generate a map from it? As in, you could have a white background, black pixels for stars, and grey lines for hyperlanes, and the game could read it and generate a map. I wanna make my own constellations.

870038300_preview_20170311032606_1.jpg
 
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Failure risk for an anomaly should instead be retained, hidden and not displayed, and of course modified by something more substantial than a skill of scientist. Especially modified by factors that human players cannot always anticipate.
In Clausewitz games, there are no such factors.

The need for anomalies to be extensively moddable means that the official set of anomalies is distributed to end users in a human-readable programming language, the publisher runs an officially endorsed gameplay wiki (hosted on their own systems) where detailed game-mechanical breakdowns of how things work are permitted, and the user base is full of the kind of people who like to take things apart and write about what they find out by taking them apart.
 
I don't think completely removing fail chance is a good idea. There are better ways to work this out. o_O

1) There are way too few anomalies (variations of) in the first place, it's pretty quick to learn the results of all of them, and since you can't fail now you just won't even bother reading the results at all after while (I certainly won't)
2) Occasionally failing some anomalies was actually very funny (reading), and it felt "right", not everything should be pink fantasy of peace, duh :confused:, (what is 90 minerals/200 credits anyway :D)
3) Why not just introduce "critical fail chance", something like 0-5% (depending on a level of the scientist), that could actually kill the scientist, ship, or cause something horrible (spawn some space monster?), while "Failing" would simply grant small amount of exp (we learn by mistakes don't you agree?), but not autokill everyone involved
4) in the very same manner you could just as well introduce "critical success", to motivate people into actually risking their scientist for possible extra during earlygame, instead of ignoring it until "it's safe"
 
Please actually DO put space monsters in the chokepoints though. Having chokepoints blocked off by 'natural hazards' is an interesting, dynamic way to control the politics of empires, and it's an interesting mid/late-game question when you'd actually remove a barrier like that (or have it removed by an enemy empire).
I was surprised by this, too. I hope some space monsters will still spawn at choke points, as they can be hugely useful.
 
Randomization has no inherent value. It only has value if it creates interesting gameplay outcomes or choices. Anomaly fail risk did not.
I'm not sure if having to take a long time to "solve" an anomaly, with a 100 percent success rate, is that much better gameplay than being able to crack them right away, with a risk of not collecting their reward. Both will lead to players just putting off solving that particular anomaly and having to return to it later.

To be honest, I thought I had misunderstood something when I read the OP and got the impression that anomaly research wouldn't be able to fail anymore.

When I play Stellaris, I look at those science ships as the USS Enterprise "boldly going where no man has gone before", or my warships and conquistador armies in Europa Universalis bravely venturing into that white terra incognita. Exploring should have a thrilling feeling of danger to it. If my ships in EU3 or EU4 couldn't sink from attrition, exploration would be far less rewarding and immersive. To me, anomaly risk in Stellaris is akin to attrition in EU. You can lose a scientist and a science ship, but it wasn't just the game randomly taking him away from you (unless you jumped your science ship into a system with some monstrosity and it got instantly eaten, I suppose :p ), it was just being too eager and reckless and paying the price. The same way, if you lose an exploration ship in EU, it's because you sent it too far and it didn't have a port to return to in time.
 
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Exploring should have a thrilling feeling of danger to it.

What danger? Losing 200 energy is not a danger. That, I think, is the problem, actually. There's no real decision about anomaly that confers either tangible risk or tangible reward. So there's very little point to it beside flavour and most failures are devoid of flavour and even somewhat weird.
 
If my ships in EU3 or EU4 couldn't sink from attrition, exploration would be far less rewarding and immersive.
You haven't played the exploration game in EU4 for quite some time, have you? :)

(Ships on an exploration mission are immune to attrition.)
 
You haven't played the exploration game in EU4 for quite some time, have you? :)

(Ships on an exploration mission are immune to attrition.)
Wow. Why?
 
No failure chance for anomalies and even more focus on choke points? That is not the right direction.

You haven't played the exploration game in EU4 for quite some time, have you? :)

(Ships on an exploration mission are immune to attrition.)
One of many reasons that I have not changed my decision to avoid updating EU4. I version locked EU4 a long time ago and I still prefer that very old version.
 
even more focus on choke points? That is not the right direction.
Why is that a bad thing? If you don't want choke points, just turn up the hyperlane multiplier.
 
Why is that a bad thing? If you don't want choke points, just turn up the hyperlane multiplier.
Does not fit well for a space game. There are other ways of encouraging battles to happen at key points without restricting movement. Changing the modifier spreads it out to some degree but does not change the core mechanic. Space games should in my view be more about fighting over control of key resource spots and border skirmishes rather than funneling all traffic through space highways.
 
Yeah well i already spent like 150€ on this game so i feel like i suported it well enough and i'm not the only one feeling that way:

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My understanding is these changes will be with the free 2.1 update.

There will be more Story Packs/Expansions down the track though. Or I hope there will be at least.
 
Does not fit well for a space game. There are other ways of encouraging battles to happen at key points without restricting movement. Changing the modifier spreads it out to some degree but does not change the core mechanic. Space games should in my view be more about fighting over control of key resource spots and border skirmishes rather than funneling all traffic through space highways.
So turn up the multiplier...
 
No failure chance for anomalies and even more focus on choke points? That is not the right direction.
My sentiments exactly. This worries me.

...just turn up the hyperlane multiplier.
So turn up the multiplier...
The Stellaris dev team will build the game less around choke points and choke point-centric gameplay if we turn up the hyperlane density? How?

One of many reasons that I have not changed my decision to avoid updating EU4. I version locked EU4 a long time ago and I still prefer that very old version.
Real-life Mayflower: we could not now take time for further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent, especially our Beere...
EU4 Mayflower: rum's gone, but we just drink salt water, so it's cool.

I'm sure there are gameplay reasons for why this change was made, but it seems very strange to me.
 
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I'm really not liking how choked those hyperlanes are. There absolutely needs to be chokepoints, I've found the current version perfect with this. You're supposed to manually create your own chokepoints based on where you're located. Sometimes it's not fair that you have a ton of openings that you need to defend, it's certainly not as free pre 2.0 but it's still challenging. A galaxy with cluster this restricted looks like you're trying to make this a little too "land-like".


Just my two cents. Still love Stellaris, still gonna welcome new changes, and still gonna play.
 
I'm not understanding how the anomaly changes will improve the game. The chance of failure does add tension. Often the failure modes can be humorous. Replacing that with waiting an extra-long time doesn't seem to add anything except boredom. We are already waiting a long time just to get from one star system to the next.

However, I do like the idea of having an anomaly log. That's pretty cool. I hope it includes the completed anomalies. Maybe there could be such a log for each scientist or ship. This "captain's log" should have a stardate on it. :)