Stellaris Dev Diary #174 - Federations is out, now what?

[Pyzayt]

Do you consider buffing life-seeded? It was bad before, but now it is even worse. The default prosperous unification has a modifier that is better than Gaia world's happiness and production bonus, while also giving reduced amenities. You also give up the bonus pops and districts, the ability to colonize with your main species and all you get in return is a slightly larger planet and 3 rare deposits that aren't that useful.

I really like the life seeded idea, but it is just so bad.

I believe Life-Seeded is specifically intended as a form of challenge Origin, alongside Post-Apocalyptic as a less extreme option to Doomsday. Sort of as a way to make the One Planet Challenge 'offical'?

 

[Olterin]

Another thing that would be potentially interesting is a sort of GC Peacekeeper Corps that could be founded - they'd function as a mercenary force purely defending the territory of an empire they were sanctioned to be deployed in. Of course, given the usual length of wars and GC session duration, they'd need a mandate to be deployed independently of the vote, or alternatively an emergency deployment vote mechanism (with a vote going for at most a year, preferably less).

 

[LWE]

I believe Life-Seeded is specifically intended as a form of challenge Origin, alongside Post-Apocalyptic as a less extreme option to Doomsday. Sort of as a way to make the One Planet Challenge 'offical'?

I dunno, the flavor text mentions how beautifully suited the planet is for the species, which doesn't work if the default planet with the Prosperous Unification modifier is suited even more.

I think the intention is to make it a "different gameplay" thing, rather than a simple "handicap yourself", kinda like Inward Perfection is. I'd certainly be more interesting that way. That's certainly how it was before Federations.

I agree with other posters who advocated Prosperous Unification modifier to be temporary.

 

[Pyzayt]

Another thing that would be potentially interesting is a sort of GC Peacekeeper Corps that could be founded - they'd function as a mercenary force purely defending the territory of an empire they were sanctioned to be deployed in. Of course, given the usual length of wars and GC session duration, they'd need a mandate to be deployed independently of the vote, or alternatively an emergency deployment vote mechanism (with a vote going for at most a year, preferably less).

Perhaps there would be a vote to deploy peacekeepers, and a vote to rescind/recall them? The GC can vote to support a member during a defensive war, and the forces remain until they vote to bring them home.

 

[Ketrai]

I mainly want robots and hive minds to get less of the short end of the stick. They have little origins made available to them, and are needlessly restricted of taking many others. The galactic community is also weird for them. Nothing specifically to tailor to robots or hiveminds, albeit they are largely unaffected by stuff like industrial development.

I feel like the robot rework is a step in the right direction... but they have far too many minerals, energy, and almost nothing to spend it on as they're stuck waiting for growth. More resource sinks would be nice, floating too much is frustrating in a strategy game. The early game could be a bit more mellow. Even just a couple colonies is so detremental to alloy production. No unity, no science for a while. On another hand their late game is too strong. Perhaps take away either rapid replicators or mass assembly, then give them another replicator in the early game or an in between tech, but don't increase the late game amount of replicators. 12.88 growth in the late game is far too strong. 4.1 in the early game is a slog.

On another note, synth evolution really still needs some tweaks. Mainly in terms of pop growth. Being able to get 20 pop growth is not okay. Ascension paths don't have to be balanced, but this bonus is disproportionally strong to the others.

 

[Pyzayt]

Mainly in terms of pop growth. Being able to get 20 pop growth is not okay.

This is a very valid point. But then I have 28 pop growth per month in my current game from stacking absurd numbers of traits and bonuses from my mods.

 

[NilsFabian]

I'd like to see some advances in the other Ascension Paths. The Psionic path is way to overpowered. It gives you immunity against the Contingency, science bonusses and nice perks.
Maybe the Synth ascencion could get a bonus against the unbidden and the genetics against the prethoryn

 

[NilsFabian]

I'd also like to see the opportunity for my Synthetic Evolution Empire to use the assimilator Colossus. Would make things way easier

 

[The Traitor]

I'm just really glad that you fixed borders not displaying in the L cluster after you build a starbase. You had to reload the game before.

 

[CalicoGray]

One other thing... diplomacy popup spam is out of control. It feels like using the internet circa 1999. I've had it pop and cancel ship redesigns, pop engineering, building... you name it. I should be able to refuse a migration treaty, research agreement once and never have it come up again with that empire unless I propose it. I think there are mods for this but having it built in would be amazing.

 

[Spaceception]

It gives you immunity against the Contingency

So does everyone who doesn't use robots. That isn't something that makes them OP, especially since you can hamper your own growth this way as long as robots are as good as they are. And since there's mostly randomness to the Crisis anyway, such as when you're careful not to give one too much trigger weight.

and nice perks.

Many of which are RNG based and almost all are temporary (with the risk of a temporary kick to the chest, like -30% growth speed). And it can take years or decades to roll the really nice ones like your special tech or the chosen one (which can kill good leaders). Compare this to the others which don't have RNG and are permanent.

Maybe the Synth ascencion could get a bonus against the unbidden

How?

genetics against the prethoryn

I could kinda see this. And on a similar note, I've always wanted biotech to be incorporated into it.

 

[pieman]

In many legislative bodies, votes that are unanimous are essentially fast-tracked into passing. It would be nice if we could pass all those early votes that 90-100% of the galactic community are on board with. The drip feed of voting on uncontroversial things makes it a little slow. I would like to get to more of the interesting and contentious votes faster.

Maybe some sort of timer speed-up mechanic the more dominant one side is?

There are times where it is in your interest to stall a current session while you work on preventing something else in the queue.

This would reward dumping loads of favours to blow out a vote, and would also allow abstaining to be a meaningful choice if your goal is slowing down the session clock.

 

[VoodooDog]

Recently I realised that we can disable sight of hyperlanes.

https://i.imgur.com/1nXsEV2.jpg

The universe looks strange then, but then I found that we are missing VERY important feature - wormhole mapmode - which could looks something like this

https://i.imgur.com/lgh6qNq.jpg

With better visibility (after exploring these wormholes), it may be way easier to play the game - now we have to check everytime where exacly is this wormhole going manually which takes time and doesn't encourages people to use them. I can easly see people playing game with 0.5 hyperlanes but x5 wormholes if this could be implemented.

i would love to disable hyperlanes not only visably

 

[Glacier87]

some of the unused ideas for Origins sound badass. Shroud touched, Escaped slaves, subterraenean etc. please consider doing some of these. Origins is an absolutely awesome feature.

 

[Spaceception]

some of the unused ideas for Origins sound badass. Shroud touched, Escaped slaves, subterraenean etc. please consider doing some of these. Origins is an absolutely awesome feature.

Agreed, I wonder if we'll see any in May. Maybe they needed more time for some?

 

[TofuFox]

The May update (TBA) will contain more bug fixes, but also a bunch of new things for you to play with. We are very interested in hearing your feedback and ideas regarding Federations, and if there was anything you would have wished for us to add. We are especially interested in feedback related to Resolutions and Federation Laws. Although I will not promise they will be added, I still wanted to leave some room open in case there were ideas that the community really wanted.

So I posted my thoughts on this at (probably too much) length elsewhere, but the resolutions that seem missing to me are:

1. Something for spiritualists, which didn't seem well covered in the updates. I think what fits here is the spiritualist interest in the rights / ability of biological (and lithoid) pops to live separate to robotic pops and in a way focusing on their happiness / stability. So the idea was a theme around individual pop productivity that aids non-machine empires, non-robotic empires in particular.
2. More space monster resolutions, going beyond Tiyanki to Crystalline Entities and Amoebas.
3. Resolutions to aid in rebellions. Rebellions are weaksauce, with the partial exception of the Machine Revolt. Adding in resolutions to aid rebellions so that they can be successful; e.g.
   

   Combat Oppression:
   All those at war with <Rebelling Empire> until the close of hositilies are in violation of Galactic Law!
   Unlocks "Just Intervention" Casus Belli against <Empire rebelled from>.
   
   Just Intervention
   Victory Condition: All systems of the empire rebelled from are granted to the rebels.
   Status Quo: All systems fully occupied are granted to the rebels.

4. A way of declaring individual empires as crises, rather than just the formal crises, since (for example) players can be a large threat. This could also be another method of enforcing galactic law - while I agree with the ability to just stay in violation of galactic law as is, being able to enforce the laws with a casus belli would be a nice addition, and it would be a good fit with this. Possible CB example:

   Corrective Action
   Victory condition: Target Empire is forced to join the Galactic Community, all policies not in compliance with Galactic Law are reset to be in compliance, and the effects of a Humiliation war are applied. All claims are enforced.
   
   Status Quo: A new empire with the original empire's ethics is formed out of occupied systems, with the original empire's ethics but with policies set in compliance with Galactic Law. The new empire joins the Galactic Community. All occupied claims are enforced.

5. The ecological protection line is too punitive and doesn't really fit any empire's plans, even though it thematically should. It needs to be reworked.
6. Some method of Joint War declaration, perhaps linked to the CBs added by the community, so that the community can act as a coherent whole in some cases.

 

[StJimmyRocks92]

Please please PLEASE get rid of the opposite ethics biasing! It's ruining the game for me as it forces me to play militantly. My pacifist/xenophile/egalitarians ALWAYS end up right next to Purifiers or Slaving Despots or other empires that will inevitably clash very quickly.

 

[G S Palmer]

Two resolutions I'd like to see are:

• Universal Autonomy: All forms of vassalage are banned
• Cultural Safeguarding: Enlightening, invading, or infiltrating primitives is banned

 

[G S Palmer]

Please please PLEASE get rid of the opposite ethics biasing! It's ruining the game for me as it forces me to play militantly. My pacifist/xenophile/egalitarians ALWAYS end up right next to Purifiers or Slaving Despots or other empires that will inevitably clash very quickly.

Yeah, please just randomize the galaxy! Sometimes it would be nice to play more of a conflict free game, so being able to load up a game as a pacifist and not have 5 hostile empires immediately breathing down your neck would be nice. Plus things like getting competing Megacorps can sometimes just be more irritating than a challenge.

 

[LWE]

People seem to hugely exaggerate the opposite ethics bias, but, having said so, there's no reason to provide an opinion to disable it.
I'm not sure that competing Megacorps is a part of opposite ethics bias. Megacorps don't necessarily have competing ethics.