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Stellaris Dev Diary #175 - Space Fauna

Hello everyone!

As I mentioned last week, we have begun working on a larger free update targeted for May, and it would be fun to share some of the new things you will be able to discover.

2.6.3 is still planned to be released as an opt-in beta SoonTM, so stay tuned for more information about that.

But for now, let’s continue and talk a little bit about what you’ll expect to see in the free May update.

Background
We’ve felt that the galaxy sometimes feels a bit empty now, compared to how it used to back in the day. Since the AI is a bit more proactive in hunting down hostile space fauna you are encountering these alien lifeforms much more seldom. We wanted to reinvigorate the galaxy with more alien life, and allow them to continue existing for a longer period of time.

Tiyanki
The tiyanki now have a home system, Tiyana Vek, which can continue to spawn more space whales throughout the continuation of your game, unless the tiyanki in the system have been hunted to extinction. The spawning of new tiyanki will also depend on galaxy size, which sets an upper limit for how many fleets can spawn (in relation to already roaming around).

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Tiyana Vek, in all its gaseous glory.

The tiyanki themselves have also been updated, and there are now hatchlings in addition to the previously existing Bulls, Cows and Calves. The roaming tiyanki fleets are now also a bit more randomized in their compositions.

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Space whaling.

Hunting the tiyanki will yield energy credits and exotic gas, but xenophile empires will not approve.

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Successful hunt. No, bounty numbers are not final.

Space Amoebas
Similar to the Tiyanki, the space amoebas now also have a home system from which they can spawn. The space amoebas spawning behaviour is slightly different from the space whales. The amoebas that spawn in the home system will have a cooldown, but may occasionally leave their system in large numbers and seek a new home.

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Behold! Amor Alveo, home of the amoebas.

As before, it's possible to complete the Amoeba Pacification Project to turn them non-hostile if you are a xenophile or pacifist empire. If you have pacified the space amoebas, it's possible for some of them to spawn in your territory. These amoebas will be friendly towards you, but perhaps not to your enemies!

Galactic Community
As we showed last week, there will also be a few new resolutions that allow you to decide how the galaxy should feel about the tiyanki.

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With the Tiyanki Conservation Act, an empire that kills a tiyanki will become in Breach of Galactic Law.

With the Tiyanki Pest Control, an empire will be in Breach of Galactic Law while they are harboring any Tiyanki within their borders.

We’re also working on a resolution for pacifying amoebas, which you can propose if you have already pacified them. Empires will get a choice whether or not they will agree to pacifying the amoebas, which will share pacification if they agree.

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These are the first steps we’re taking towards reinvigorating the galaxy a bit. We’ll give you more information in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned for future dev diaries!
 
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What, nothing on clouds? drones? pesky caravanners? Still, a good direction overall.
Since the AI is a bit more proactive in hunting down hostile space fauna you are encountering these alien lifeforms much more seldom.
That and after you nerfed spawns several times? >.>
We’re also working on a resolution for pacifying amoebas, which you can propose if you have already pacified them.
Any plans on making pacification yield comparable benefit to study? There's hardly any point in it now, except for RP.
 
Ha! Hahaha! Ooh, that's a good one. Let me tell you this, as a modder who works with code a lot - That's not true. That is very not true. In writing code, your issues always stem from one of two things - A single out-of-place character (typically a } ) that you then have to trawl through the entire code for, or the way you wrote your code means the only fix for the bug is to rewrite the entire thing.

Writing code is not a simple task. It is never a simple fix for one line. It's a cascade of finding bugs, fixing them, and then discovering your bug fix introduced 20 more bugs, because computer code is just that plain frustratingly difficult to work with. Bugfixing is not simple. It is not easy. Otherwise, we wouldn't have bugs.
and hey! don't forget that some bugs end up becoming features due to their unexpectedly beneficial effects. Those times you go "oh! i didn't mean to do that... but that is actually pretty cool/useful... lets expand on that." lol
 
Some of the spaceborne wildlife moves around between systems, so that wouldn't work.

It would just have to be a check for a permanent presence, not simply whether one exists or not. I think the only things that move are the Tiyanki and some amoeba, and both are getting a home system that doesn't move. If it's required that it's the home system, that just makes them more valuable, so you could make the building more powerful, and it pushes Rogue Servitors to take control of those systems and protect them. Which would be sweet. I already do that with primitives, and will aggressively defend other empires from crises and stuff like the Khan.
 
Why does "everyone" misinterpret a statement like "Paradox should prioritize completions, fixes, optimizations and balance way more seriously" as if your counterpart has written "Paradox doesn't do said patch-stuff at all" ?
Because that's what they're acting like. They are demanding they do bugfixes, as if they aren't already. "But what about the bugfixes? Why aren't you doing any of that?"
Do you know what ? It would be more interesting to read about the other way around: Actual patch-dev-diaries and just promises about new stuff in the future since such patch-dd(s) would be actual proofs ( and not just speculations ) that, what and in which extend ( priority ) said patch-stuff was and is done.
I already gave the relevant info from such a dev diary.
I can give you the relevant content of that diary right now.

"We're working on it. Some fixes will make it into 2.6.3, some will have to wait for the free May update."

Such a diary would give us so little that wouldn't already be in the patch notes, that there is literally no reason to do it. Have some patience.

"Nice" sarcasm, but there's a reason why the respective game-/ or content-designer should do actual patch-stuff as well: They're the guys and girls which had programed the respective stuff initially: They had the initial idea, they know the intended behaviour behind and they're already familiar with the stuff they've initially programed as well. They're the best choice to clean up their own "mess".
Except it doesn't work that way.
 
Seems kind of odd that the Tiyanki Matriarch remains unrelated to their home system.

Maybe the home systems could have their own "guardians"? The tiyanki having another matriarch that remains passive until her flock is attacked, and the amoeba maybe having a Centenarian or two with the same behaviour sounds like it might be interesting.
After all, the crystals get their nidus, too.
 
Why does "everyone" misinterpret a statement like "Paradox should prioritize completions, fixes, optimizations and balance way more seriously" as if your counterpart has written "Paradox doesn't do said patch-stuff at all" ?
Because that's what they're acting like. "But what about the bugfixes? Why aren't you doing any of that?"
What I read is that you make up such "quotes" in order to "prove" your own accusation.

"Nice" sarcasm, but there's a reason why the respective game-/ or content-designer should do actual patch-stuff as well: They're the guys and girls which had programed the respective stuff initially: They had the initial idea, they know the intended behaviour behind and they're already familiar with the stuff they've initially programed as well. They're the best choice to clean up their own "mess".
Except it doesn't work that way.
-.-

"That way" is even the most cost-effective method since the respective guy or girl knows already what, where and how he / she had done X so that flaw Y in X will be identified, patched and tested way sooner than having to rely on third persons. Familiar with the old advice of "Play your own games" from veteran-devs like Johan or Wiz ? That's "do it yourself". Patching included.
 
Seems kind of odd that the Tiyanki Matriarch remains unrelated to their home system.

Maybe the home systems could have their own "guardians"? The tiyanki having another matriarch that remains passive until her flock is attacked, and the amoeba maybe having a Centenarian or two with the same behaviour sounds like it might be interesting.
After all, the crystals get their nidus, too.
I mean, it was suggested by the Curators that the matriarch is possibly just from another galaxy, where tiyanki have evolved to grow bigger.
 
Could be that it's something that's hard to track down the source of.
Could be that it's something that's just not as high priority for fixing as some more critical bugs.
Could be both of the above.
Could be something else.

Chances are there's a reason any particular bug that's been around for a while hasn't been fixed - take the fleets not firing on the enemy bug - that one's been around since before 2.0, if I recall right, but it's been a nightmare to track down because reloading fixes it, making any save file of the bug useless because reloading it will resolve the issue.

This shoulnt be an excuse of letting issues be in the game for years, at some point things needs to get prioritized and/or redone if not fixable, simple as that. For some things in Stellaris the time has come to get finally sorted!
 
What I read is that you make up such "quotes" in order to "prove" your own accusation.
I have quoted exactly what I responded to. Prove them wrong then.
-.-

"That way" is even the most cost-effective method since the respective guy or girl knows already what, where and how he / she had done X so that flaw Y in X will be identified, patched and tested way sooner than having to rely on third persons. Familiar with the old advice of "Play your own games" from veteran-devs like Johan or Wiz ? That's "do it yourself". Patching included.
That way is the least effective method, because the content designers are not full-time coders. Would you ask that guy down the street that changes his own oil to rebuild your Lamborghini engine?

I also love how you ignored my comment on having a dev diary on it.
 
I love how whenever you check in on a dev diary several days later, it has almost inevitably devolved into some people squabbling about performance/bugs.
 
I have quoted exactly what I responded to. Prove them wrong then.
Some of the issues I've reported have been reported by others before. Reading those really left me with a strong "why is this not fixed already!?" vibe.
From why is this and that not fixed already aka his / her desire that Paradox should prioritize completions, fixes, optimizations and balance more seriously to ...
But it does not follow that they aren't fixing bugs. Which is what you claimed.
As if Paradox wouldn't do anything. That's just the usual over-the-top-reinterpration of a ( reasonable ) desire into an absurd accusation, but just to make up a leverage to undermine said desire. And before someone takes out the "But Paradox has to make money"-card, they do since the revenues and profits have increased again so that quality-prioritization ( in favour for the fans ) is pretty affordable in return: https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/en/year-end-report-2019/

Would you ask that guy down the street that changes his own oil to rebuild your Lamborghini engine?
No, I would ask the guy who'd engineered the engine of ( not just ) my Lamborghini to identify its ( general ) flaws. That's what I'm referring to. And in Stellaris, I've even the luck that its engineers are also mechanics which is why I've written that they're not only the best choice to identify, but patch and test their own "mess" as well.
 
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Just a thought, what if the Tiyanki matriarch was renamed the tiyanki patriarch, and a matriarch was in their home system which only aggressively defends her own, or the tiyanki matriarch was in the tiyanki home system?

Another thought what happens if there are still space amoeba and tiyanki alive, and both their home systems have been destroyed?

Do they continue to wander until they go extinct, or could they potentially claim one of the systems they inhabit as their new home system, and after 50-100 years or something start spawning new fleets?


Also, I'd love to see more types of alien life like the space amoebas and tiyanki, with some neutral, and some hostile until pacified, since having more variety would be nice too!
 
As if Paradox wouldn't do anything. That's just the usual over-the-top-reinterpration of a ( reasonable ) desire into an absurd accusation, but just to make up a leverage to undermine said desire. And before someone takes out the "But Paradox has to make money"-card, they do since the revenues and profits have increased again so that quality-prioritization ( in favour for the fans ) is pretty affordable in return: https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/en/year-end-report-2019/
https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/en/year-end-report-2019/ That's an awful lot of words to say very little.


No, I would ask the guy who'd engineered the engine of ( not just ) my Lamborghini to identify its ( general ) flaws. That's what I'm referring to. And in Stellaris, I've even the luck that its engineers are also mechanics which is why I've written that they're not only the best choice to identify, but patch and test their own "mess" as well.
No, you wouldn't ask the guy that designed it. You'd ask the guy that has experience fixing them.
 
You don't think they would prefer space fauna improvements over stable connections, do you?
Devoting a dev diary to talk about... what, exactly? Dev diaries don't talk about bugfixes because there's nothing to talk about. Listing the ones fixed is useless, as that's what the patch notes are for.
 
That's an awful lot of words to say very little.
To hand-wave away is an awful method to counter. You write with "that" less than "very little", namely nothing.
No, you wouldn't ask the guy that designed it. You'd ask the guy that has experience fixing them.
If I were you then I wouldn't follow that path any further since you're basically questioning the competence of the game-/ and content-designers to patch their own game.
Devoting a dev diary to talk about... what, exactly?
Still about performance like this one: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...rformance-and-other-technical-issues.1335134/
Still about the AI like this one: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...laris-dev-diary-172-reworking-the-ai.1348837/
Other ones for UI-improvements, message-settings against the zillion of *DING DING DING* notifications nobody cares or multiplayer-improvements against the zillion of desyncs. The interest is certainly there. Don't tell me otherwise.
Dev diaries don't talk about bugfixes because there's nothing to talk about.
Isn't bug-fixing such an incredible challenge ? I'm sure that exciting stories and dd(s) would follow.
Listing the ones fixed is useless, as that's what the patch notes are for.
By that logic all the new stuff don't need dd(s) as well since the final update-notes contain them, too.