Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today, we're going to continue talking about the 2.1 'Niven' update accompanying the Distant Stars Story Pack. Everything mentioned in this dev diary is part of the free update, not the story pack.

Space Creature Research
In the Niven update, we've gone back to the space creatures (Amoebas, Crystals, etc) and improve on their special projects and rewards. Instead of the wildly inconsistent and unbalanced rewards we have now, we have changed the space creatures so that upon discovery and completion of the initial contact project, you will now generally get up to 3 options, depending on your ethics and the type of creature:
- Hunt: This will grant a permanent damage bonus towards this type of space creature, and rewards in the form of resources on killing them.
- Research: This is the most similar option to the old events, and unlocks a special project for detailed research of the space creature that will yield a reward in the form of technology and/or permanent empire buffs.
- Pacify: This will unlock a more expensive special project that allows you to turn the space creatures non-hostile, allowing you to co-exist with them and share their space, as well as potentially unlocking the ability to research special components or weapons that they use. It is not possible to pacify certain kinds of space creatures, such as mining drones.

Strategic Resource Discovery
Another thing we've tried to improve on in Niven is the discovery and exploitation of Strategic Resources. Previously, while exploring, you would not know if you had discovered any strategic resources unless you first had the related technology, which generally meant that you would explore, eventually research the tech, and suddenly discover a bunch of resources on places you had already built orbital stations on - not the most rewarding or strategic feeling. We've changed this so that strategic resources are now always visibile from the start, and you will get an event informing you when a science ship discovers a new strategic resource for the first time.

Some strategic resources will be able to be exploited immediately, while others will require a technology to be researched before you can build a mining station around that planet and gain access to the resource. Strategic Resources have generally been buffed and made more rare - we've removed their tendency to spawn in large clumps in certain areas of space, so if you find a particular resource and fail to claim that system before someone else does, you can no longer be assured that there will be another of its type nearby, and generally there won't be enough of any one strategic resource for every empire in the galaxy to have access to it.

Experimental Subspace Navigation
Lastly for today is a new order we've added for Science Ships called Experimental Subspace Navigation. This order is unlocked by a mid-game tech and allows the science ship to travel to any system which you have any level of intel on (that is, has been in sensor range at least once, or is part of another empire you have communications with) while ignoring the hyperlane network. The science ship will be considered MIA for the journey and simply arrive in the other system at the end of the order, bypassing any hostile creatures or closed borders along the way. This allows even empires that have been boxed in by hostile neighbors to continue exploring the galaxy and complete event chains that might otherwise require a war. Certain special systems (such as the L-Cluster) will not be possible to travel to using this method.

That's all for today! Next week is PDXcon, so there won't be a dev diary. There will, however, almost certainly be something related to Distant Stars talked about at the event itself, so stay tuned!

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

How about having a variety of unique resources as I've mentioned before? Maybe one empire gets some crystal that allow them to have a stronger type of laser while I find in my territory a resource that allows me to build a deadly type of missile? Iron is too universal a material and it would bad for balance purposes but if you have multiple types of resources that unlock a technological path then empires would develop more uniquely and they would balance out through different ways.

The issue there is what happens if an empire manages to get someone else's resource as well as their own during the expansion phase? So to take your example, I expand a bit faster than you, and have not only the superlaser crystal, but also the deathrocket missile. It'd wreak havoc with the balance, and you'd have to be really careful that all the resources or at least their results were balanced, otherwise you just end up with one resource being the one you always want.

 

[pcavalcanti]

The issue there is what happens if an empire manages to get someone else's resource as well as their own during the expansion phase? So to take your example, I expand a bit faster than you, and have not only the superlaser crystal, but also the deathrocket missile. It'd wreak havoc with the balance, and you'd have to be really careful that all the resources or at least their results were balanced, otherwise you just end up with one resource being the one you always want.

But if the resources are well spread it's not going to be that easy to control more than one resource - you're going to be too far away for that. And let's say you end up controlling 2, 3 or even more. This means you'll get bigger and steamroll the neighbours but at the same time maybe other empires on the other side of the map are doing the same. If you have a reasonable number of resources you might end up with 3 or 4 major empires. By then the Fallen Empires could wake up to try and curb that expansion and start intefering in intergalactic trade and politics to balance things out by protecting smaller powers they're friendly to or protect just as a political move so their own existence isn't threatened.

 

[Risa]

While I am not the one who made the post you replied to originally [quoted below] -- I do believe they were referring to all resource being seen from the beginning which makes them feel less special rather than talking about their icons being identifiable.

Ah, that's where misunderstanding comes from.
I didn't talk about those resources' icons are identifiable or not. I talked about those resources' deposits are easily identifiable, without showing their icons. Therefore hiding icons or not makes no difference. (That is, you know those resources are there.)

 

[beckermt]

TIL the word "swales"

 

[TheDungen]

The Neo-Assyrians raised cavalry and chariot units in response to incursions by horse nomads too.

Yeah but the neo-assyrians did not have saddles the way we do so they essentially just used the cavalry as an elevated platform they shot arrows from and they had people who led the horses around.
But yes it was access to the resource (big enough horses) and also how to use this resource, but going from horses being just big enough to pull chariots to then being big enough to carry a rider or even an armoured rider was a massive change.

 

[Incompetent]

If we pacify space aliens, will they become generally non-hostile, or just non-hostile to empires that completed the project? Will there be any way of telling which options other empires picked?

I find it's often tactically useful to leave hostile critters alive in certain systems, as a kind of 'natural barrier' to the invasion of my territory, or as a roadblock to rival empires' expansion when I don't have the resources to claim the system myself. If they become passive to you but still attack your rivals on sight, they could be even more useful as a kind of faux-bastion that you can attack through, but which will impede other empires, and give you the edge if you manage to force a battle in that system. Anything short of a Leviathan will simply get swatted by late-game fleets, of course, but in the early game the firepower of space critters is quite significant.

 

[laptor]

It doesn't help if only a few empires have the resource, they need to retain a unit of it for their own purposes, and the ones with that resource aren't friends with you.

Stealing the resource would be highly frustrating yo the player if it happened to them. Having control of s resource should mean you have control of it.

Is a Strategic Resources still strategic if everyone got it...?
The chance for the game aspects "trading" and "conflict for resources" are enormous, I think!

 

[Purussaurus]

To prevent space creatures from being killed within my borders, there must be some kind of agreement/policie that forbids other empires from coming in to do that, I guess.

 

[Oscot]

To my mind strategic resources should be a primarily a matter of degree, not of kind. Certainly in a space 4X. Having a bonus to shields is good. Having an alternate and different shield tech locked behind a resource can be good. Being the only empire in the galaxy who can have shields because you happen to spawn on top of the "magic shield rocks" isn't.

I think the problem with Strat Resources in Stellaris at the moment is composed of two related but distinct parts:
A) They don't "feel" very important
B) They really aren't very important, strategically

You can help with (A) by properly advertising them (i.e. with popups as in the OP, this is a step in the right direction). But I think the real best way of making them feel important (short of up-ending the strategic meta and introducing the Civ-esque problems you go on to mention) is to dangle locked technology / modules / buildings in the player's face and say "Nerr nerr nerr nerr, you can't have this until you control some Yuratanic Crystals".
Sure, a 15% laser damage boost is OK, I guess, but when it's just a stat in a submenu somewhere it's hard to get emotional about it. Especially when (1) going to war to get a system with those resources in it is probably going to cost you more than 15% of your firepower anyway, so it's a stupid investment; (2) if there's a micropower on your borders with strat resources who can't put up a fight, well, the logic of Stellaris is that you'd kill him for his planets whether there's strat resources on them or not; and (3) most of the time it's gonna be quicker and easier to just build 15% more ships: same effect, fewer maluses.
Conversely, having a juicy technology with a big red X through it, taunting, teasing, and tantalising you every go to the tech menu... that's the sort of thing that gives a player the emotional motivation to declare war on a neighbour.
This is killing two birds with one stone, because "emotional motivation to declare war on a neighbour" is also something Stellaris has sorely lacked since v1.0.

 

[SirSprinkles]

Any new planetary resources?

I recall there was a thread about ideas for new strategic resources, I'll provide a link to it:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/some-more-local-resources.1063596/

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

I think the problem with Strat Resources in Stellaris at the moment is composed of two related but distinct parts:
A) They don't "feel" very important
B) They really aren't very important, strategically

You can help with (A) by properly advertising them (i.e. with popups as in the OP, this is a step in the right direction). But I think the real best way of making them feel important (short of up-ending the strategic meta and introducing the Civ-esque problems you go on to mention) is to dangle locked technology / modules / buildings in the player's face and say "Nerr nerr nerr nerr, you can't have this until you control some Yuratanic Crystals".
Sure, a 15% laser damage boost is OK, I guess, but when it's just a stat in a submenu somewhere it's hard to get emotional about it. Especially when (1) going to war to get a system with those resources in it is probably going to cost you more than 15% of your firepower anyway, so it's a stupid investment; (2) if there's a micropower on your borders with strat resources who can't put up a fight, well, the logic of Stellaris is that you'd kill him for his planets whether there's strat resources on them or not; and (3) most of the time it's gonna be quicker and easier to just build 15% more ships: same effect, fewer maluses.
Conversely, having a juicy technology with a big red X through it, taunting, teasing, and tantalising you every go to the tech menu... that's the sort of thing that gives a player the emotional motivation to declare war on a neighbour.
This is killing two birds with one stone, because "emotional motivation to declare war on a neighbour" is also something Stellaris has sorely lacked since v1.0.

As I said, I'm in principle alongside having a "different", or boosted version of a tech or module be locked by a resource. However, it needs to be very carefully done.
Living metal is a good resource for me, since it provides a nice set of bonuses and a small (almost) unique effect, but locking a whole core tree out (like shields or "advanced" laser weapons) feels like going too far. Another option I'd consider would be gating a tech behind two requirements with an OR trigger; one is a strategic resource, the other is a rare, relatively late tech. So perhaps you need the magic space rock in the early game, but there's a mid to late game option to create artificial magic space rocks (or to use a Civ style analogy, oil and synthetic oil). If you have both, then perhaps it gives a bonus, or it's treated as being tier 2 of the tech.

I'm not sure you'll get emotional about having a resource unlock a tech or module either. I certainly don't when a research does it, or even really with something like living metal. At best there's a "huh, that's nice" and then it buries itself in my menu of bonuses just the same.

 

[Haltin]

Experimental Subspace Navigation
Lastly for today is a new order we've added for Science Ships called Experimental Subspace Navigation. This order is unlocked by a mid-game tech and allows the science ship to travel to any system which you have any level of intel on (that is, has been in sensor range at least once, or is part of another empire you have communications with) while ignoring the hyperlane network. The science ship will be considered MIA for the journey and simply arrive in the other system at the end of the order, bypassing any hostile creatures or closed borders along the way. This allows even empires that have been boxed in by hostile neighbors to continue exploring the galaxy and complete event chains that might otherwise require a war. Certain special systems (such as the L-Cluster) will not be possible to travel to using this method.

Why not simply make it a cloaking device ship module? In the hands of a l33t scientist it makes the ship completely invisible. Otherwise it makes ship invisible from outside systems (the nebula effect).

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

Why not simply make it a cloaking device ship module? In the hands of a l33t scientist it makes the ship completely invisible. Otherwise it makes ship invisible from outside systems (the nebula effect).

Because cloaking is a pain in the ass, and then someone demands a way to break the cloak, or to put it on military vessels.

 

[TheDungen]

Because cloaking is a pain in the ass, and then someone demands a way to break the cloak, or to put it on military vessels.

Make it like Stargate where cloaks and shields interfere with one another and it takes time to convert from one to the other, essentially no one would go wit cloak over shield on a warship.
Or the Mass effect explanation, it's not really a cloak because you don't really get visual on thing sin space, what it is is a way to hide your heat signature. But it can only operate for a limited time for very small ships.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Make it like Stargate where cloaks and shields interfere with one another and it takes time to convert from one to the other, essentially no one would go wit cloak over shield on a warship.
Or the Mass effect explanation, it's not really a cloak because you don't really get visual on thing sin space, what it is is a way to hide your heat signature. But it can only operate for a limited time for very small ships.

How is that a better mechanic than a "jump to known systems" button for science ships?

 

[TheDungen]

How is that a better mechanic than a "jump to known systems" button for science ships?

Because you could trespass in other people's space, which would add a whole new dimension to things.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Because you could trespass in other people's space, which would add a whole new dimension to things.

That's something you'd need a whole lot of supporting mechanisms for and rather surpasses the scope of this feature as a means of allowing continued exploration regardless of unlucky galaxy gen.

 

[antoca]

You so ruined your game with last updates. I still play 1.9.1, and after such diaries I am more and more convinced to stick to it.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

You so ruined your game with last updates. I still play 1.9.1, and after such diaries I am more and more convinced to stick to it.

Ok.

 

[Strager]

You so ruined your game with last updates. I still play 1.9.1, and after such diaries I am more and more convinced to stick to it.

That really doesn't seem to be the consensus. Yes, people still want more types of FTL added (and I highly suspect that in the next (post DS) update there will be at least one) but overall the reception to the changes were pretty positive.