Stellaris Dev Diary #158 - Federation rework

[Shark7]

If the game were completely unplayable, then yes, I'd have issues. I do agree a bug pass is needed, but as it sits I can still play and enjoy it.

Honestly, some of the things listed I did not know, because I have never run into them.

And to my point, I am still less worried about the bug pass than a fundamental change to game mechanics that forces 1 particular play style. That would be game-breaking for me.

Again, I'll wait and see. And by that I mean I won't buy on release date and see how many complaints or compliments end up in the forum about it. Then I will try it myself.

 

[DrNukeLear]

Sometimes a bug is an undocumented feature. Just because it looks wrong doesn’t mean it isn’t mean to work that way. I’m not saying stellaris is bug free. But occasionally there are things which work that way for a reason.

 

[Methone]

Sometimes a bug is an undocumented feature. Just because it looks wrong doesn’t mean it isn’t mean to work that way. I’m not saying stellaris is bug free. But occasionally there are things which work that way for a reason.

And where's the overlap between those and peoples' common complaints?

 

[The Founder]

* Servile Syncretic Evolution species can generate leaders and work certain specialist jobs if granted all rights and full military service.

Full Military Service is supposed to allow the generation of Miltiary leaders. That is what differentiates it from "Soldiers only".
It might be a bug that it is allowed for a Servile species. But beyond that, it is working as designed.

 

[Methone]

Full Military Service is supposed to allow the generation of Miltiary leaders. That is what differentiates it from "Soldiers only".
It might be a bug that it is allowed for a Servile species. But beyond that, it is working as designed.

Well I mean, the Servile trait literally says 'cannot generate leaders'. So I think it's a bug.

 

[Foefaller]

Let's see...

(...)

That's just the outright bugs, still unfixed for more than one release, that come to mind. I'm sure there's plenty more. Consider also the incredibly stupid builds that the AI does, and has done at least ever since 2.2 came out:

• Starbases with shield modules and anti-shield weapons in Pulsar systems.
• The AI mixing in a single S or M disruptor on a ship with no other bypass weapons.
• The AI building clinics on absolutely all their planets even though it takes 334 months (most of 30 years!) for any pop working in one of those things to lead to enough additional pop growth that you have merely as many productive pops as without it (and they they go upgrade the thing, spending exotic gases and wasting five pops on it!)
• The AI building xenophobic megacorps, which is such a stupid combo (phobes want to go wide, corps want to go tall; phobes have diplo penalties but corps are all about diplo, phobes can't be philes and philes have the bonuses to trade and diplo that corps focus on), it might be the new pre-Inward Perfection equivalent of xenophobic pacifists.
• The AI having almost no concept of what ascension perks, much less ascension paths, are good ideas, leading to lots of Transcendent Learning or Imperial Prerogative or whatnot and very little in the way of ringworlds, ecumenopoli, and other things they could actually use that resource bonus on. It's even possible (unlikely but possible) for a a Spiritualist empire to go Machine ascension, which is the stupidest possible thing because spiritualist empires cannot use full AI rights!
• The AI still has no idea how to handle crime. I once (in either late 2.2 or some time in 2.3) saw a planet where they hade the Broken Crime Lord Deal modifier (which imposes a heinous penalty to stability) eight times on a planet (the modifier only lasts 10 years!) and many had expiry dates only months apart, meaning they had spent at least 200 influence over the course of a decade on Crime Lord Deals thet they'd then almost immediately broken, leaving the planet with a -80 stability modifier. Maaaaaaybe they fixed that one now?

A few of the "Why does the AI do this stupid thing!?" things you post sound less like dumb AI issues and more like terrible balancing issues. Clinics is the biggest one; I suspect there are more than few people (especially if they do not regularly read these or other Stellaris-related forums) who are not even aware that gene clinics are a bad pick. Ascension Perks is another; While it's true that how the AI weights AP choices would really benefit from another pass, one could also argue (and be 100% correct IMO) that something like Transcendent Learning shouldn't even exist, at least as an Ascension Perk. (The AI also suffers a bit from the fact that it can't "bank" an AP slot in order to wait for a specific unlock condition for a perk it would normally choose if it could, and that might be a limitation to how Stellaris' AI works, not the devs being unable/unwilling to make it do so.)

I assume by Starbase, you mean defensive platforms? because the Starbase loadouts aren't decided by the AI, or at least, the AI running empires and making ship choices, and is something the player has to deal with as well. Disruptors and defensive platforms are more clearly a poor AI choice though, but on some level, it's intentional; AI weapon and ship module choices are decided almost entirely by their Empire personality (with a bit of randomness for some later modules and to account for the random tech tree), and this was done so a player could figure out the "counter" when at war with them in the same way they would know, for example, that Poland in EUIV has amazing cavalry (also because an AI that immediately adapts to the player's loadouts would be Not Fun, both for the player and the programmer who's drawn the short straw in trying to make it do so)

That said, there are still a bunch of loadout tweaks that would make the AI "smarter" that have been pinned for nearly as long as the other things you've mentioned, like no longer making point defense something that takes away a normal weapon slot and/or making them not as hard a counter to missiles as they are now. Plus, you know, not using just a single disruptor (probably limiting them as a pick for empires that prefer missiles and strike craft.) Defensive platforms with shields and ballistics even orbiting pulsars is because the AI only has one design of each "ship" class at a time, would take having the AI create and keep track of two defensive platform loadouts, likely at all times, and knowing to pick the shield-free one for pulsars.

...And Xenophobic Megacorps (that don't have Criminal Heritage) are all about subsidiaries, which unlike normal vassals are still able to expand and conquer, allowing the Megacorp to "expand" by supporting its vassals. Is the AI capable of the sort of constant harassment that would be required to weaken neighbors that started off at the same strength as them to acquire the force Subsidary CB necessary for this? Heck No (Non-Criminal Heritage xenophobic Megacorps should probably be one of those empires like Genocidals that are weighted to be an advanced start more often than not, so it's more likely to run into other empires that it can bully into being subsidaries) but it is valid playstyle that I can attest to as being kinda fun.

The Crime issue is totally the AI being dumb though. I've considered doing a suggestion on how to revamp crime, both so that Criminal Heritage Megacorps can be more playable and to prevent the sort of issue you've mentioned.

All in all though, I'm slightly optimistic that the AI will be at a better place after Federations that it was after Armageddon or Megacorp (please note I did not say "good", but "better place," as in more functional Day 1 than it was after 2.0 and 2.2) because the diplomacy overhauls we've seen, while big and important, so far don't look like game-changers on the scale of completely revamping warfare/expansion/FTL in 2.0 or revamping the economy in 2.2., and therefore I would think not necessarily require big rewrites of the AI to accommodate massive changes.

 

[Arch-Heretek]

I didn't see any convincing rebuttals to the concept of pacifist, egalitarian, and spiritualist federations, but I did see some things I think are easily disproven.

Egalitarian Feds: What I saw was claiming that this is essentially just the "galactic union" default fed. Rather, an egalitarian "federation" seems more likely to me to be a Confederation, looser collection of states than the usual, perhaps only unified in military aid in times of war and very large amounts of autonomy, more focused on giving individual members of the Confederation bonuses to their nations. This runs in the face of the "centralization" mechanic, at least on a surface level, as the point of a confederation is low centralization, and instead might benefit from "Cooperative Cohesion" or something along those lines. Their leaders would have each member elect a delegate, and then have one of them selected at random to be the leader. This could be represented by a "confederal agenda" bonus, since we do not actually elect leaders on this level. So each nation would have an election as to what agenda they want to put forth as the leader, and then the winning agenda of the constituent nations would get picked at random, or maybe influence jockeying could play a role for a preferred "candidate" (agenda). Still, the position as leader of the Confederation wouldn't come with many powers, and maybe obligations instead, beyond setting that bonus for their election term and commanding the fleet, if one even exists.

Spiritual Feds: The claim that religions compete with each other and so wouldn't cooperate doesn't hold up so well to me. While the exact theologies differ and have historically been used as justifications for war against one another, today, there is little fundamental difference in how they actually act; those who are diehard religious, to the point of making it their central worldview, are usually radical traditionalists, reactionaries interested in "traditional social structures," usually meaning patriarchy, moralism, certain prohibitions, spreading the faith, and so on. On the opposite end, there are things like the so-called New Age spiritualists, devoid of such instincts but more focused on "mindfulness" and "spiritual connection" and such, almost always without a strict scripture. To me, this presents an easy dichotomy for spiritual federations; go down the neo crusader path, or the more harmonious path, generally going different ways of getting unity and happiness.

For pacifists, people talked about basically lots of guarantees. That doesn't seem very engaging, nor is it really unique or even in line with how I'd imagine pacifists to act (insert useless UN joke here). This is a harder one, especially since the trade focus is already taken. I don't have many ideas, but one that came to mind was what if there was very little direct protection from being in this fed? What I mean is, they have fed fleets disabled, and maybe don't even go to war in support of one another (that may be too far), but instead get lots of bonuses to defense and native capacities, sort of like a larger scale Inwards Perfection-lite, obviously without the diplo prohibition. Maybe bonuses to how long peaces last, and how much it costs to claim and take systems, as well as a war exhaustion reduction.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

To me, this presents an easy dichotomy for spiritual federations; go down the neo crusader path, or the more harmonious path, generally going different ways of getting unity and happiness.

So... like I said before, all options covered by the existing options. Religious crusades are militarist, general spreading-of-the-word is the default, and a more philosophical faith-based focus on art and culture would be the trade federation.

Again: not every ethic needs a special federation type for the sake of it, because the ones presented cover most ideas with their mechanics.

 

[Arch-Heretek]

So... like I said before, all options covered by the existing options. Religious crusades are militarist, general spreading-of-the-word is the default, and a more philosophical faith-based focus on art and culture would be the trade federation.

Again: not every ethic needs a special federation type for the sake of it, because the ones presented cover most ideas with their mechanics.

Sooo.... "Conveniently" ignore most of the post for one phrase. The more options the better for the player, rather than shoehorning and relying on using headcanon to make something right.

Again, it isn't a matter of choosing one or the other, but evolving into one. I'm not talking about Megachurches. So, instead of knowing exactly what you get with some martial alliance, a spiritual fed is mostly up in the air depending on who becomes president and the reforms they may take. It actually gives outside factions a reason to get involved, if they so choose. A small pacifist empire would more likely support the inwards turned spiritualist than the crusaders, because it results in them not getting destroyed. To go even further, a militaristic theocracy is not the same as a military with a state, see the morale/discipline or quality/quanity divide in EUIV; in game, it's more likely to come down to a quality/quantity divide, though both would probably have both modifiers, just with the priorities reversed. This doesn't touch upon mixing and matching either, which seems more possible from this perspective than solely being a martial alliance or some trade league, who are more or less set.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

A few of the "Why does the AI do this stupid thing!?" things you post sound less like dumb AI issues and more like terrible balancing issues. Clinics is the biggest one; I suspect there are more than few people (especially if they do not regularly read these or other Stellaris-related forums) who are not even aware that gene clinics are a bad pick. Ascension Perks is another; While it's true that how the AI weights AP choices would really benefit from another pass, one could also argue (and be 100% correct IMO) that something like Transcendent Learning shouldn't even exist, at least as an Ascension Perk. (The AI also suffers a bit from the fact that it can't "bank" an AP slot in order to wait for a specific unlock condition for a perk it would normally choose if it could, and that might be a limitation to how Stellaris' AI works, not the devs being unable/unwilling to make it do so.)

I assume by Starbase, you mean defensive platforms? because the Starbase loadouts aren't decided by the AI, or at least, the AI running empires and making ship choices, and is something the player has to deal with as well. Disruptors and defensive platforms are more clearly a poor AI choice though, but on some level, it's intentional; AI weapon and ship module choices are decided almost entirely by their Empire personality (with a bit of randomness for some later modules and to account for the random tech tree), and this was done so a player could figure out the "counter" when at war with them in the same way they would know, for example, that Poland in EUIV has amazing cavalry (also because an AI that immediately adapts to the player's loadouts would be Not Fun, both for the player and the programmer who's drawn the short straw in trying to make it do so)

Yeah, improving the game balance would indeed fix a lot of things, although the AI still definitely needs to be aware that things like machine-ascension-as-spiritualist is a Never Do That, and that some perks (like ascension paths) are supposed to be better than others and it should, if not explicitly plan for them, at least take them as soon as possible. De-weighting the perks that are available early (why would you ever take One Mind as your sixth pick?!?) would also be a good idea. Balancing buildings would definitely also help, but even there, I think the game just needs better awareness of what is and is not a good build. It's way too willing to waste the potential of a planet that desperately wants to be specialized in some way.

I'm aware that the AI "players" don't design their starbases any more than human players do, but they are still designed "by AI" (for extremely weak values of "AI"). As one of the few aspects of the player's game that is neither random nor under their control, it's infuriating how stupid the starbase weapon and defensive mixes are sometimes. Pulsar systems are the most obvious example, but hardly the only one; if the enemy is using PD then every missile launcher should be firing swarm missiles (if you have them), for example. I've also seen a level 2 starbase (admittedly without weapon modules, just the basic weapon loadout) mounting four railguns and no anti-armor weapons (aside from its missile launcher, which of course skips shields entirely); even the AI is only occasionally stupid enough to build a mono-weapon layout like that.

I really don't see why having AI players need to track a defensive design for pulsar systems separate from the one used in non-pulsar systems would be that hard. Like, it's really genuinely easy to build a platform design for pulsars: all armor (or *maybe* plating, if you have it) and medium guns (for acceptable tracking early-game) or large guns (if you have launchers) fitted with launchers, plasma, or lasers, in that preference order. Aux slots should be filled using the usual algorithm with a special rule for "not shield capacitors". You give this design the empire-specific flag pulsar_platform, give platforms with that flag a 0x weight modifier in non-pulsar systems, and give all other platforms a 0x weight modifier in pulsar systems. You might even be able to do this in the modding language; I haven't tried tampering with the AI behavior. If you can't, the only reason would be because the 1-design-per-hull restriction is hardcoded, there's no way to set flags on designs, or there's no way to consider the star type when building platforms (and the last seems unlikely).

Oh, speaking of long, long-lived bugs: defense platforms lose 15 points of tracking the first time you upgrade their computers. I thought that one had to be a tooltip bug, but no, it's right there in the data files. The base platform computer gives +20 tracking, the first upgrade reduces that to +5 tracking (and +5 fire rate).

As a final note: I really disagree that the AI should have predictable (and thus easily counterable) designs. Weapon choices as a matter of personality don't make a lot of sense, weapon choices as a matter of a personality characteristic that is exposed to the player as soon as you establish diplomatic contact make no sense at all. At a minimum, the current preferences should be moved to some invisible empire property that is randomly chosen for each empire, but realistically it should actually be based on a weighted choice, re-evaluated periodically, taking into account two things: what techs the empire has (if you get level 3 lasers and still only have level one guns and missiles, that should tilt your weapon choices hard) and what weapons/defenses belligerent empires near you are using. The AI in Stellaris will never be as good as a decent player on a strategic level unless, like, Alphabet gets tired of beating StarCraft and decides to take on GSGs. Still, it's supposed to be artificial intelligence, not artificial stupidity, and broadcasting your weapon and defense mixture to everybody is the epitome of stupid.

 

[Henra]

Nice to see Federations fleshed out. I would like you to ad some means of communication outside of Federations to.

Also for the stuff you hinted at pre Pdxcon, nice to get some sort of Ministers for Colonisation etc. I would love to be able to select what they do. You can then pick them their areas of influence out of a new list and give them a name. So the areas are fixed, but you can ad a focus.

For example add Areas like: Economy, Diplomacy, Colonisation, Politics, Warfare, Science, Ethics, Infrastructure, Construction, Trade
And then the focus of your ministrys: Colonisation: Focus 1: Colony Development Speed. Focus 2: Pop Growth on frontier Worlds.
Infrastructure: 1.Focus: Core World Infrastructure build speed; Focus 2: Develop Frontier Worlds Infrastructure
Trade: Focus 1: Reach new Agreements: Trade attractiveness increases; Focus 2: Improve Trade effectiveness, more income from existing trade.

Then i pick a individual for that Job which has traits as you have shown in that Picture. Makes it more organic, then fixed ministers. Also, you could ad a Funding Option, which gives boni or mali for said trait. Maybe the default for all Ministers could be 10% of your Energy income, split among them. You can then increase or decrease the overall value or the individual ones and boost their trait effectiveness.

Great work so far. Keep it up.

 

[Henra]

Great Job guys.
A thing i like to get added, that doesn´t fit this Expansion so much is a smoother Transition between normal worlds and a ecumenopolis. Maybe you could add some special Urban Buildings or districts like Mastery of Districts does. Also a planet view where you can see and possible eben select where on a plantet you want to develop something would be the dream for emersion. Probably not that easy though.
Happy to see Stellaris still get better.

 

[The Founder]

The more options the better for the player, rather than shoehorning and relying on using headcanon to make something right.

The more distinct options, the better.
If you end up just make 2-3 variants of some existing federation types, you do not really add anything to the game.

Keep in mind that Federation Cohesion is a thing and it is worse by differing ethics. Also your Ethics shift into certain directions, if you are in a Federation with someone of that Ethic.
So if you are in a "Crusader Alliance", what you got is a Military alliance of Spiritualists. If they are all Spiritualist, you get a good cohesion from that. And if they are not, being in a Federation boosts their Spiritualist Attraction.
I turne Xenophobe empires into Xenophile, just be being in a "Defese pact of Convenience against a Fanatic Purifier".

 

[The Founder]

Looking at wich Ethics the current Federations focus on:

Certain federation types have requirements on what type of empire can suggest to form them, but there are no limitations on who can join a federation (except for killer empires & inward perfection). Yes, this also means that Barbaric Despoilers and Criminal Syndicate are no longer excluded.

Galactic Union - Xenophile.
The core property that it halves the cohesion penalty for different Ethics. Xenophilia is not just about people, but also ideas (like Ethics) moving.

Research Cooperative - Materialist, obviously. It is worth remembering that Materialist Ethics spread via Reserach Deals with Materialists. Unless you got a pure Spiritualist RC, you will find a Materialist somewhere in there. And it will spread.

Martial Alliance - Militarist.

Hegemony - Overlordship has been most consistently a Authoritarian/Collectivist issue.

Trade League - There is a reason I picked it last, because "Capitalism" and "Trade" are not a conventional Ethic. Merchant/Capitalism has been linked to Egalitarian and/or Materialist in the past. But I would say it is slightly on the Egaliterian side right now. Egalitarian Empires produce more trade value from pops then Authoritarian ones.

 

[Methone]

Trade League - There is a reason I picked it last, because "Capitalism" and "Trade" are not a conventional Ethic. Merchant/Capitalism has been linked to Egalitarian and/or Materialist in the past. But I would say it is slightly on the Egaliterian side right now. Egalitarian Empires produce more trade value from pops then Authoritarian ones.

It's usually linked to Pacifism.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Unless you got a pure Spiritualist RC, you will find a Materialist somewhere in there. And it will spread.

A purely spiritualist research cooperative is basically impossible, since you have to be materialist to found one.

 

[Foefaller]

I really don't see why having AI players need to track a defensive design for pulsar systems separate from the one used in non-pulsar systems would be that hard. Like, it's really genuinely easy to build a platform design for pulsars: all armor (or *maybe* plating, if you have it) and medium guns (for acceptable tracking early-game) or large guns (if you have launchers) fitted with launchers, plasma, or lasers, in that preference order. Aux slots should be filled using the usual algorithm with a special rule for "not shield capacitors". You give this design the empire-specific flag pulsar_platform, give platforms with that flag a 0x weight modifier in non-pulsar systems, and give all other platforms a 0x weight modifier in pulsar systems. You might even be able to do this in the modding language; I haven't tried tampering with the AI behavior. If you can't, the only reason would be because the 1-design-per-hull restriction is hardcoded, there's no way to set flags on designs, or there's no way to consider the star type when building platforms (and the last seems unlikely).

Oh, speaking of long, long-lived bugs: defense platforms lose 15 points of tracking the first time you upgrade their computers. I thought that one had to be a tooltip bug, but no, it's right there in the data files. The base platform computer gives +20 tracking, the first upgrade reduces that to +5 tracking (and +5 fire rate).

Didn't mean to say that it was hard, only that it was a Thing the AI wasn't doing right now. Also somewhat disturbed by the target computer thing.

As a final note: I really disagree that the AI should have predictable (and thus easily counterable) designs. Weapon choices as a matter of personality don't make a lot of sense, weapon choices as a matter of a personality characteristic that is exposed to the player as soon as you establish diplomatic contact make no sense at all. At a minimum, the current preferences should be moved to some invisible empire property that is randomly chosen for each empire, but realistically it should actually be based on a weighted choice, re-evaluated periodically, taking into account two things: what techs the empire has (if you get level 3 lasers and still only have level one guns and missiles, that should tilt your weapon choices hard) and what weapons/defenses belligerent empires near you are using. The AI in Stellaris will never be as good as a decent player on a strategic level unless, like, Alphabet gets tired of beating StarCraft and decides to take on GSGs. Still, it's supposed to be artificial intelligence, not artificial stupidity, and broadcasting your weapon and defense mixture to everybody is the epitome of stupid.

So, after seeing this I thought I'd dig into the files a little more and it's not *quite* as immutable as I thought. Far as I can tell, weapon preference nowadays "only" dictates ship components, and there is more than a little randomness to it, including usually leaving a 1% or 10% chance that they buck the trend and go with something else. Also, it sometimes gets a little bit more complicated than preference, with a couple of sections specifically calling out certain AI personalities.

In fact, it basically goes like this:

Corvettes- Explosive (i.e. Missile) preference picks the torpedo hull, Kinetic preference picks the picket hull, Energy preference pick the 3S weapon hull, and Strike Craft preference rolls to see which of the 3 it takes.

Destroyers- For the Bow section, all AI types except for Peaceful Traders, Slaving Despots, Migrating Flock, Evangelizing Zealots, or Hive Mind (personality, not empire type) will prefer the 1M, 2S bow. Those who prefer Explosives will use the worst bow (i.e. Picket) until they unlock Battleships, when they will start using the L bow. Worth noting that the list of above empires is mostly empires that don't have explosive preference (In fact, only Slaving Despots is missile-preference) So the end results is that those empires have a 10% chance of going with picket or L, non-Slaving Despots with a missile preference having a 10% chance of going with the 1M2S bow, and everyone else will go with the 1M2S Bow 99% of the time. For the Stern, All empires are overwhelming weighted to pick the 2S Stern, with the above empires given a 10% of taking the picket stern.

Cruisers- If they like Missiles, they take both Torpedo sections. If they like Strike Craft, they take the Strike Craft section. Otherwise, roll the die between the other sections.

Battleships- Everyone except Strike Craft Preference jumps between the non-SC Bow sections until X-slot is unlocked, then goes to it... Except for Explosive, who refuse to, with Strike Craft going 50-50 between it and the strike craft section. Think that's a bug. Similar thing with the mid section; Strike Craft is set to prefer the section that's 4M1H, but not the 2S2PD1H section, which given equal rate to the other two sections for everyone else. Stern is 50/50 shot between the two.

Finally, Defensive platforms are similar to Cruisers, save that Energy prefers the Medium section and Kinetic is 50/50 on that and the small section.

As for Weapons, it turns out they've been given separate AI tags for their purpose in combat; Anti-Shield, Anti-Armor, Anti-Hull, Artillery (Which is L-Slot and X-Slot only weapons, regular missiles and Swarmer missiles, but not torpedoes. Missiles in this category might be why they never jump to X weapons on battleships) and Point Defense, while Strike Craft don't seem to have an AI tag. Couldn't find anything about how the AI weights them, which probably means it's not in a simple text file. Also means I have no clue if it affects section choices at all beyond what's in the ship sections folder, or if it will load more of a specific tag if there is weapon with enough of a tech disparity between it and weapons belonging to other tags, of if the AI does in fact have some ability to redesign their ships in response to their enemy's loadout. All I could see is that Plasma has an extra weight compared to Lasers, and Disruptors have an extra weight as well, though the only other weapons marked Anti-Hull are ones you get from space monsters or the Unbidden. Might be the reason they stick them in there early and not in all-anti hull loadouts. Otherwise, I'm assuming that those tags are there to make sure that the AI tries to make a balanced loadout regardless of personality and the ship sections it has chosen.

From what I can see, some fixes to improve the AI could be:

-Again, redo Point Defense to not replace weapon components, Kinetic-focused empires handicap themselves with corvettes, and missile focus handicap themselves with Destroyers until Battleships are unlocked simply because they are set to (almost) always pick a picket section, even though missile and strike-craft focused empires are rarer than energy or kinetic focused, and the later doesn't even get to bring strike craft to fights until they unlock crusiers.

-Could use some more/different AI weapon tags. For example, Missiles, Torpedoes and Distruptors could all be in their own "Bypass" tag, with something so that if the AI is (forced) to use one, they try to make their loadout out of it exclusively. Torpedoes at least should probably be reassigned; it's labeled anti-shield, even though it doesn't damage shields but rather bypasses shields and *if* the tags are for balanced loadout shouldn't be paired with most anti-armor weaponry.

 

[Bearjuden]

Can empires whose ethics do not match a certain federation join that federation if suggested by someone else? Eg, can a materialist propose to make a research cooperative to a non materialist? If not that, can a non materialist join one created by two materialists? If a materialists proposes a research cooperative and then loses their materialism, do they get kicked out, or is cohesion the only penalty? Or is there a penalty in between - reduced vote weighting in passing laws/succession, and the like?

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Can empires whose ethics do not match a certain federation join that federation if suggested by someone else? Eg, can a materialist propose to make a research cooperative to a non materialist? If not that, can a non materialist join one created by two materialists? If a materialists proposes a research cooperative and then loses their materialism, do they get kicked out, or is cohesion the only penalty? Or is there a penalty in between - reduced vote weighting in passing laws/succession, and the like?

The ethic limitations were specified in the DD to apply to the founder only; only the one who creates the eesearch cooperative has to be materialist, etc.

I cant imagine it would kick you out if your wthics changed, either.

 

[SongOfChaos]

Just wanted to tip my hat at the launcher icon for this dev diary.

Starfish alien with a quill and lil' mustache? <3