Stellaris Dev Diary #148 - Relics & Relic Worlds

[G S Palmer]

What about the Gray Goo crisis? Will you get a relic from that?

I always wanted to use their shipset. I always felt it was the most underrated ship design in the vanilla game, despite there being only four models associated with it (factory, mothership, interdictor, strike craft).

It would make sense to make Grey (the nanite individual you can rarely find in the L-cluster) a relic. Then whenever you activate him, you can choose between making him a ship/army/governor.

 

[Calvax]

I mean, if you have the Queen you'll likely be defeating the Crisis itself soon after. There's not much game left after the 'final boss'.

True but for players who want to play on, maybe to unite the whole galaxy, it would be good if the relic did more than just spawn a tiny fleet that couldn’t compete.

 

[sajaxom]

Now that there is more of a story driven focus to planets and expansion, I'd love to see more depth added to colonization and exploration. I really enjoy the exploration side of the game, and I tend to start a lot of new games that I don't finish, and so spend a lot of time in the first 50-100 years. I'd love to see exploring planets and creating new colonies become a long term, story driven investment, as opposed to just a quick return or a stepping stone on the way to snowballing. For instance, a planetary expedition could be sent to planets, perhaps owned or not, allowing players to uncover additional resources, relics, or planetary modifiers. Similarly, colonization could be a drawn out process over tens of years or more, where the planet surface and below are explored in depth. This could help to slow down the early snowball, making expansion an interesting component of the game for much longer.

One additional thing that would make the exploration game a lot more fun, and make the fight for relics a lot more interesting - let us trespass. Currently, closed borders are completely impassable, which is both absurd and not very fun. Either allowing us to trespass for some diplomatic penalty, and risking our ships, or providing some more nuance to border policy, such that exploration and trade is allowed, but not military and colonization, etc., would allow the early game tension and pioneering to continue on even after major powers have established their borders. This could add the potential for more interesting concepts relating to competition and borders, like smuggling, privateering, raiding, unauthorized colonies, and other border tensions. Right now our options are essentially deal with it or fight to the death, which isn't very immersive, and pushes us toward min-maxing instead of indulging in a great story.

 

[G S Palmer]

Now that there is more of a story driven focus to planets and expansion, I'd love to see more depth added to colonization and exploration. I really enjoy the exploration side of the game, and I tend to start a lot of new games that I don't finish, and so spend a lot of time in the first 50-100 years. I'd love to see exploring planets and creating new colonies become a long term, story driven investment, as opposed to just a quick return or a stepping stone on the way to snowballing. For instance, a planetary expedition could be sent to planets, perhaps owned or not, allowing players to uncover additional resources, relics, or planetary modifiers. Similarly, colonization could be a drawn out process over tens of years or more, where the planet surface and below are explored in depth. This could help to slow down the early snowball, making expansion an interesting component of the game for much longer.

One additional thing that would make the exploration game a lot more fun, and make the fight for relics a lot more interesting - let us trespass. Currently, closed borders are completely impassable, which is both absurd and not very fun. Either allowing us to trespass for some diplomatic penalty, and risking our ships, or providing some more nuance to border policy, such that exploration and trade is allowed, but not military and colonization, etc., would allow the early game tension and pioneering to continue on even after major powers have established their borders. This could add the potential for more interesting concepts relating to competition and borders, like smuggling, privateering, raiding, unauthorized colonies, and other border tensions. Right now our options are essentially deal with it or fight to the death, which isn't very immersive, and pushes us toward min-maxing instead of indulging in a great story.

Yeah, it would be kind of neat if another step was added to colonization - before you can send a colony ship, you've got to explore the planet using a science ship, which would be more in-depth that just surveying.

 

[Sayakus]

I am excited for story pack ?
Yes
Do we need more of those ?
Yes
Will i buy it ?
Yes
This is my response i guess, i would love some more polishing and bug fixing afterwards tho.
And some more ship model packs, i would love to buy nanite like ship model pack.

 

[VoodooDog]

sounds nice and all, but if this is another 20€ dlc for 1 or 2 new features it will be another sub 50% dlc. the 4th in a row.

 

[Mauer]

I really like this new future. I hope that the relics won't be lost if you fully annex a enemy. I know the snowballing would be bad but still.

How about making a dialog once you annex an empire like

"there is a relic detected"

Then you could spend some ressources to gather intel which relic and give some further choices like:

"leave it",
"try to get it" a small chance like 1% for some ressources,
"get it at all cost" bigger chance like 10 % for very high ressource cost.

This would give conquering an additional flavor. For future updates if you go for espionage some covert ops for relic claiming could be an awesome boost to small empires.

And refugees could sneak it into another empire that takes them in if you fail.

 

[Pale Blue]

sounds nice and all, but if this is another 20€ dlc for 1 or 2 new features it will be another sub 50% dlc. the 4th in a row.

It is listed for 10€ in the PDX store.

 

[Mauer]

We will probably do something about obtaining Relics from other empires, but it won't be available at release. Another reason why we leaned against it was that we didn't really want you to be able to know what relics other empires have yet, unless it was The Galatron. Having an event that can randomly trigger when you annex another empire's capital seems reasonable though, so will probably look into something along those lines.

Well, that's a disappointment tbh, more rewards for expansionists. Some of us just want to raid. Even the Barbaric Despoilers unique CB is pretty underwhelming with what you can extort from other empires.

 

[Incompetent]

It is worth point out, that the Galatron was already stealable.
Just because nobody ever managed the 0.5% chance to get it, nobody knew.

Yep. I wonder if the chance of getting it will be buffed, or if we will be allowed to buy more Reliquaries for a chance of getting it, or the AI will buy Reliquaries so there is a higher chance that some empire will get it?

It seems to me that the devs only put the Galatron in the game to fit into the 'lootbox' joke: specifically, that companies selling lootboxes endlessly hype the most 'epic' item you could win, without telling you that the chance of winning it is so low that you'd have to spend tens of thousands of dollars on average to get it.

 

[Shade Argost]

Can I ask for one extra thing in this update?

The ability for collective consciousness pops to migrate between your planets if there are no jobs or housing left on their home planet, please?

 

[skytta]

I personally think that a CB for all relics is only good for warmongering so I am against that. But I am also against destroying the relics out right, if an empire gets destroyed. There should be a chance that the relic is destroyed, captured or can escape with one of the fleeing pops. I think this option will preserve most relics and also doesn't favor warmongering.

 

[Gaarq]

With a game as complicated and as many moving parts as Stellaris, they will never, ever, ever be able to solve all the old bugs. To expect them to do so is to be ignorant of the realities of programming. Furthermore, as a business, they have to keep producing new content. They have shown they can do this and fix bugs at the same time.

you are right, i am totally ignorant to programming and i am aware of the business model. anyway, i am not happy with the state-of-arts in such endeavour. i understand that it also does not matter to majority of players, so i have to deal with it myself. you see, we differ in that you think they can manage both, bugs and new DLCs, whereas i see it other way around. i lack the enthusiasm of my youth to quickly jump on anything new, i prefer things to be settled that's it.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Really glad this might be implemented eventually. Why wouldn’t you want players to know about other empire’s relics though? A pop up with some art work reporting that another empire has activated a powerful relic would make the galaxy feel more alive IMO.

I've always wondered why you can't get more information about other empires- seeing their Relics would be fantastic, but also like... why can't we see what Traditions or Ascension Perks they've taken?

 

[kpipersburg]

The relics system sounds like a really cool addition. Looking forward to it.

But with respect, considering the issues with the release of MegaCorp, you should really consider taking the time to switch over all the precursor (and anomaly) content to use the new relic system instead of doing it piecemeal over the next however-many patches. I think it would go a long way towards getting back some of the goodwill you've lost.

What good will was lost? I generally ignore herds of people because you all whine a lot. I thought megacorp was great. It's pretty enjoyable. They could tweak criminal syndicate to be a bit better or have newer government forms and narratives, but as a whole Megacorp did nothing but bring good will for me. Stop demanding the devs to do things with emotional terrorist tactics.

 

[kpipersburg]

This sounds great! If barbaric despoilers could steal relics from homeworlds that would actually make them a little scary and give reason for the entire galaxy hating them besides being pop thieves. More fallen empire interactions would be nice and asking you to give their lost relics back or else would be a good addition. Oooh, maybe there are relics in them thar holy worlds!

I'd rather it be a general cb that has flavor added as someone else mentioned e.g. holy relics in machine hands sparks a crusade cause belli to occupy the machine homeworld and recover it. Holy relics could be fought over in heretic wars vs other spiritualist empires, like the dimensional horror's eye (a window to the shroud). Machine empires could battle over the junk bot heart or a cybrex combat computer. There's literally a story that could be made for every relic and reasons for civilizations to fight over them. Egalitarians/democracies could fight Authoritarians over the First League Constitution or the scepter of an ancient emperor.

 

[kpipersburg]

Would be cool if you could re-breed or clone or whatever the Ether Drake hatchling too. Like say your teams uncovered another intact egg or whatever else might bring about another. Like uh, say cloning or something if nothing more interesting could be thought up. As it is, the drakeling is mostly just a fancy pet more than anything else, since it comes into play so, so late in the game and is irreplaceable so I just send it to hang out by my fortified home system where it won't get hurt. It'll almost never see combat since I can't bring myself to let it get hurt. That and it tends to be kinda slow compared to my fleets. The L-Drakes suffer from that too but once they catch up.... Assuming the battle's not over by then. Also irreplaceable but at least you can get several.

Oh right and with your fleets being able to Jump but they can't... That limits their usability a lot as well.

I want to raise my etherdrake into a 250k fleet power monster that gobbles up 200 fleet cap. Of course there should be an excavation site on dragons hoard that drags up eggs that can be activated with the drake trophy with a looooong CD. It would super cool to have the other drake die and have the other players in mp on the map give a collective, "oh shhh" as they realize they have 50+ years until you hatch a drake and raise it into your pocket Godzilla.

 

[Dodge]

I welcome more toys to play with, however not sure about the new Precursors, doesn't seem to add a lot

 

[kpipersburg]

We will probably do something about obtaining Relics from other empires, but it won't be available at release. Another reason why we leaned against it was that we didn't really want you to be able to know what relics other empires have yet, unless it was The Galatron. Having an event that can randomly trigger when you annex another empire's capital seems reasonable though, so will probably look into something along those lines.

Could also wait until you add spy leaders who can cost influence to maintain in enemy territory, but can be issued missions, one of which happens to be to crack into their vault or ends with them seeing some "cultural" oddity that seems to be important.

 

[kpipersburg]

So we saw the new Ringworlds districts require strategic ressources now. Will you make changes to Ecumenopoleis so their districts require strategic ressources aswell? I know you have said that not everything has to be competitively balanced, but its been obvious forever that Ecumenopoleis are the strongest ascencion perk in the game, way more useful than any Megastructure and easer and earlier to get.

You save tons of motes and chrystals thanks to their districts, their 50% growth allows organic empires to grow similar to Hiveminds while still growing Robots or building Synths. And the 20% flat ressource bonus is twice as good as Hive or Machine worlds. Not saying everything has to get nerfed, but something has to be done about them.

I've recently taken to trying out hive minds. My first few attempts failed, but that was because I didnt understand. Expansion tree first, take the expansion/claim rediction AP first, and take industrious. Then just spam hella planets. 20% habitability just means -20% growth. Who cares? You have +30% growth speed just for hive. You now have 10 worlds. Slap down research and foundries everywhere. Reseach towards cloning building asap. 33% more growth speed. Did you take the grasp the void for +5 anchorages? Good. Your fleet is large, cheap, and unstoppable. You're industry is insane. Gobble more space, take more worlds, build more mines. Unity worries? Nah... synapse drones. And this all before you even convert to hive worlds. You're now OP. Someone has an ecumenopolis? Cute. You have 1.4k fleet cap and 25 worlds just pumping out resources.