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Stellaris Dev Diary #128 - Decisions and Planetary Bombardment

Hello everyone! We’re back yet again for another Stellaris development diary. Today we're going to continue talking about the 2.2 'Le Guin' update, and as promised last week, the topic will be Decisions and Planetary Bombardment.

And before we get right into it I of course have to reiterate that we're not yet ready to reveal anything about when 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ is coming out, and that screenshots may contain placeholder art, interfaces and non-final numbers.

Decisions
Planetary edicts are gone - long live Decisions! Decisions is a new feature that will replace the old Planetary Edicts. We’ve always wanted to do more with planetary edicts, and Decisions now allow us to do a lot more cool stuff. Some Decisions can be enacted on any planet (colonizable or not) in your empire’s borders. Decisions can cost any resource, and can also require a certain amount of time to pass before the effect will take place. For example, the Mastery of Nature Ascension Perk now allows you access to Land Clearance – the Decision (see image below). Some Decisions will have toggle options – like for example Martial Law. Enacting the Martial Law Decision allows you to later on Revoke Martial Law should you wish to do so.

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The system will be fully moddable and we’re looking forwards to seeing what cool stuff the community can come up with.

Planetary Bombardment & Devastation
To better fit with the new systems, bombardment has been slightly reworked.

When a planet gets bombarded it will suffer Devastation. Devastation ticks up from 0 up to 100, and is a direct penalty to your planet’s housing, amenities, trade value and pop growth. Clearing Devastation will take time and cost resources, as one would expect.

Fleets, as you know, have different Bombardment Stances – each with its own effect on how fast Devastation ticks up and how large chance there is for a Pop to be killed during bombardment. The higher the Devastation is on a planet, the higher the chance is for a Pop to be killed. When a building slot becomes invalid due to no longer having the amount of Pops required for it to operate, the building occupying it will become Ruined. A Ruined building may be repaired once the requirements of the building slot are once again met.

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For those concerned that Devastation is too punishing, rest assured that we will be looking into that. Recovering from Devastation should never feel like an impossible task.

Next week our we will continue covering the features of the 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ update with the topic of Tradition rework. Because this week’s dev diary is a bit shorter, I’ll leave a teaser for next week. Enjoy!

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I can't help it... i'd rather be able to fight back rather then just stall & turtle. Defense Armies would be more useful if the Enemy was Bombarding them & the Defense Armies actually had any options to shoot back at them. If Bombardment was NOT a full blown Hard Counter to Defense Armies, people would actually have a reason to think about if they wanna Bombard & Ground Army at the same time, thus have Warrior Culture & Very Strong powered Attack Armies have an actual reason to exist. I would like better carnage in my carnage... but one cannot have a good enough amount of carnage in a fight that is totally one sided.
 
Fortresses suck cause who cares how long they can Stall when they can't fight back? If they can't fight back, they can't possibly win no matter what. Who cares if ya are losing faster or losing slower, you're still losing as one's only choice. :(

Stall longer = more time to accumulate war exhaustion = more chance to enforce status quo instead of losing.
If they are sending troops to the ground then you've basically already lost anyway and the best you can do is lose less.
^That

Defense Armies would be more useful if the Enemy was Bombarding them & the Defense Armies actually had any options to shoot back at them.
If planets could shoot back, it would not make the planet capture more interesting. It would make it more annoying.

Right now you can have a fleet set to agressive auto-followed by transports set to agressive.
Sic them onto a System and they will more or less finish that one automatically. We could propably use something to reinforce the Army stacks, but that is a a can of worms itself (with the Transport Fleets de- and re-spawning that often).
 
I've never before played a game with 'War Exhaustion'... that's gonna take some getting used to. I'm more used to having to directly blow stuff up or directly be defeated... >_<

I'm failing to understand how Planets firing at Bombarders would be annoying... but then again i'm big on Carnage & welcome more of it. This aspect might be a case of 'To each their own'...
 
I'm failing to understand how Planets firing at Bombarders would be annoying... but then again i'm big on Carnage & welcome more of it. This aspect might be a case of 'To each their own'...
You could not jsut leave them there, doing their thing automatically. You have t o micromanage the repair after the starbase capture. Then again after each planet capture (because they did some damage).

Paradox does use Attrition, but only in games where the entire (re)supply chain is abstracted behind stuff like Manpower, Infantery Gear reserves and a "monthly reinforcement rate".
 
You could not just leave them there, doing their thing automatically. You have t o micromanage the repair after the starbase capture. Then again after each planet capture (because they did some damage).

Paradox does use Attrition, but only in games where the entire (re)supply chain is abstracted behind stuff like Manpower, Infantry Gear reserves and a "monthly reinforcement rate".
Funny ya mention that... I am commonly a Control Freak about how I have my stuff go about its stuff anyway. :p
 
I can't help it... i'd rather be able to fight back rather then just stall & turtle. Defense Armies would be more useful if the Enemy was Bombarding them & the Defense Armies actually had any options to shoot back at them. If Bombardment was NOT a full blown Hard Counter to Defense Armies, people would actually have a reason to think about if they wanna Bombard & Ground Army at the same time, thus have Warrior Culture & Very Strong powered Attack Armies have an actual reason to exist. I would like better carnage in my carnage... but one cannot have a good enough amount of carnage in a fight that is totally one sided.
you can fight back, get your fleets to where they're needed
 
you can fight back, get your fleets to where they're needed
But of course... but while the Fleet is en route Travel Time is a thing. What would a Defense Army rather do during this wait time... shoot back at the Aggressors, or sit there & be unable to be anything but a living Bullseye...? IMHO one of the two options is clearly better then the other.
 
Because everything devs do after a 1.9.1 is wrong, useless or harmful.
If you can actually look at the Fleet manager and say that, kudos to you.
 
We’ve always wanted to do more with planetary edicts, and Decisions now allow us to do a lot more cool stuff.
Ok, but this sounds like a lot of micro-management, especially later in the game with a zillion of colonies ...

What makes sense for me is to decide, whether my colony should be (for example) a penal- or a resort- or a what-ever-colony since, unless I will change my mind, this decision will be permanent (which avoids too much micro-management and justifies its costs (even later in the game with a zillion of colonies)) and this decision includes some sort of a trade-off since (for example) my penal-colony can't be a resort-one at the same time ...
(As far as I understand, the martial-law-decision is an other (good) example for this) ...

For example, the Mastery of Nature Ascension Perk now allows you access to Land Clearance – the Decision (see image below).
To be honest, it's a no-brainer since it's a permanent "decision" with no trade-off, so that you will take it by all means ...

On the other hand, I'm concerned in regards to too much micro-management and the justification of costs in regards to these non-permanent decisions ...

When a planet gets bombarded it will suffer Devastation.
Devastation ticks up from 0 up to 100, and is a direct penalty to your planet’s housing, amenities, trade value and pop growth.
Clearing Devastation will take time and cost resources, as one would expect.
In EU-IV, I don't like this "soft" feature since as a "hard" feature, it's better to destroy the actual development of a / the province(s) ...
In Stellaris on the other hand, I think, that it fits into ...

For those concerned that Devastation is too punishing, rest assured that we will be looking into that.
Recovering from Devastation should never feel like an impossible task.
It's already a "soft" feature, so, ..., what-ever.
 
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