Stellaris Dev Diary #238 - Ascensions, Betas, and More

[styroler]

I really like the general Idea of Unity being used as the dividing line between building tall empires and wide empires but the one thing I have been confused about this is how is it getting rebalanced for tall empires to actually be getting more unity than wide empires. Currently the meta is wide technology empires because they produce massive amounts of the most important resource, technology. How has unity gain been changed in order to prevent the meta from becoming wide unity empires who get the best of both worlds by gaining massive amounts of unity. Will unity gain be penalized at all by Empire sprawl, or alternatively have significant changes been made to the gain of unity to make it a difficult resource to maximize the production of?

Finally, on both of these notes, will unity producing planet designations be a thing. Ive always struggled with that idea because on the one hand it seems kinda weird, but on the otherhand players prefer to build specialized worlds and the lack of a unity designation leads to weird cases where you're turning some maxed out basic resource world into your unity world because its the only one with free building slots and cant be further specialized in its field (and then you have to memorize which world it is for future management because you dont want to loose your resource designation). Even if it doesnt make the most sense, I do think that a cultural designation should exist simply for the convenience of empire management. It doesnt have to give benefits to unity production (maybe just an upkeep or construction bonus to those buildings and pops) but simply allow players to keep their uniform management style.

 

[WoodenP]

I just want to add my two cents that I really like the unity cost for leaders. I always thought that the swap to energy over influence a few years ago made them far far too accessible and cheap (especially since credits are a marketplace resource). It encouraged the player behaviour of re-rolling constantly to min-max for good perks, or leader spamming, and ultimately created this extra avenue for experienced players to out-manage the AI that felt arbitrary to execute. Now the perks you get matter again because changing them is consequential!

I understand that a lot of players have been conditioned over these interim years to reroll leaders constantly and spam scientists, and this change now conflicts with that behaviour, so it feels bad today. But I think this is the right move still and to have this part of the game be a decision point again. I'd warn against listening to feedback coming from people who openly say "This sucks because I usually start by creating four to six science ships".

One small thing you could do to meet halfway is have spiritualist empires start with a larger unity surplus so they can get a little bit more of that leader spam experience at the start, it's just that now it's the domain of the unity empires and not everyone.

It's also very exciting to think about all the extra balance headroom you now have on leader perks and things because they are hired with a non-marketplace resource.

Please keep the unity currency!

 

[MarkDey]

I just want to add my two cents that I really like the unity cost for leaders. I always thought that the swap to energy over influence a few years ago made them far far too accessible and cheap (especially since credits are a marketplace resource). It encouraged the player behaviour of re-rolling constantly to min-max for good perks, or leader spamming, and ultimately created this extra avenue for experienced players to out-manage the AI that felt arbitrary to execute. Now the perks you get matter again because changing them is consequential!

I understand that a lot of players have been conditioned over these interim years to reroll leaders constantly and spam scientists, and this change now conflicts with that behaviour, so it feels bad today. But I think this is the right move still and to have this part of the game be a decision point again. I'd warn against listening to feedback coming from people who openly say "This sucks because I usually start by creating four to six science ships".

One small thing you could do to meet halfway is have spiritualist empires start with a larger unity surplus so they can get a little bit more of that leader spam experience at the start, it's just that now it's the domain of the unity empires and not everyone.

It's also very exciting to think about all the extra balance headroom you now have on leader perks and things because they are hired with a non-marketplace resource.

Please keep the unity currency!

I agree with having a unity cost for leaders, but think that there should still be a good starting supply so players can have multiple science ships at the start of the game without sacrificing years of tradition progress.

 

[Nevars]

I agree with having a unity cost for leaders, but think that there should still be a good starting supply so players can have multiple science ships at the start of the game without sacrificing years of tradition progress.

It only delaying tradition for about 5-12 months (depending on empire) per leader.

So if you want more scientist play with empire that's focusing on unity.

I think it is a good thing anyway cuz now you can't mindlessly spamming science ship to explore, now it has a real cost that you need to weight your decision.

 

[TempestM]

Starting exploring shouldn't be as crippling in a 4x game. Expanding into explored zones is another matter

 

[andreihaiducul]

To solve the early exploration issue, you could make the "To Boldy Go" tradition grant a free Roamer scientist and maybe add a scientist discount to the Discovery finisher.

 

[TempestM]

Or... just don't make scientists for early exploration cost that much. It's all solution to a problem that just wasn't there. Remove the problem instead of thinking of solution afterwards

 

[Ixal]

Or even better you can use actual strategy in a strategy game, balance out the need between exploration and tradition and decide that way how to use a limited resource.

 

[TempestM]

Or even better you can use actual strategy in a strategy game, balance out the need between exploration and tradition and decide that way how to use a limited resource.

Why there should be a choice between a scientist and tradition in the first place? I don't see how choosing between exploring in the first years (which is a staple for any 4x) and doing anything else is supposed to be a good balance

 

[Nevars]

Why there should be a choice between a scientist and tradition in the first place? I don't see how choosing between exploring in the first years (which is a staple for any 4x) and doing anything else is supposed to be a good balance

Having to decide between two good thing and both have trade off is what we call strategy.

Also because fast exploration is vastly op so it should be something that you need to invest in instead of it's essentially free.

It's not like you can't explore without spamming scientist either, you just doing it slower so if you want to do it faster, you should need to put in effort to do so.

 

[TempestM]

Having to decide between two good thing and both have trade off is what we call strategy.

Also because fast exploration is vastly op so it should be something that you need to invest in instead of it's essentially free.

It's not like you can't explore without spamming scientist either, you just doing it slower so if you want to do it faster, you should need to put in effort to do so.

For it to be a good strategy it needs to be a choice between things that make sense to have a choice between them. Having to choose between tradition and new scientist for a science ship makes no sense

 

[Seyfried]

Is the Beta only available for the Steam version? Can I get it through the Paradox Launcher?

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Is the Beta only available for the Steam version? Can I get it through the Paradox Launcher?

Yes, the beta is only available via Steam.

 

[Seyfried]

Is there some way to import my version into Steam?

 

[Gilbert95]

To solve the early exploration issue, you could make the "To Boldy Go" tradition grant a free Roamer scientist and maybe add a scientist discount to the Discovery finisher.

I like this idea. I would implement it as an event that gives a choice of 2 or 3 different leaders with different traits - Roamer, plus maybe Carefree and Meticulous. I might even go a step further and add this to several other traditions where it makes sense.

Supremacy -> Admiral with choice of Aggressive, Gale Speed or Scout
Unyielding -> Admiral with choice of Cautious, Fleet Logistician or Unyielding
Domination -> Governor with choice of Iron First or Righteous
Prosperity -> Governor with a choice of Architectural Interest, Bureaucrat or Intellectual
Adaptability -> Governor with a choice of Agrarian Upbringing or Environmental Engineer
Harmony -> Choice of any leader type with the Adaptable trait

 

[Jouh]

After having been with Stellaris since the beginning, Ive so far liked every single patch. Bought every single DLC so far even, because the game simply scratches that one itch that I have - exploration, discovery and good space stuff.

But this might just turn into the first patch that I really dislike. Removing admin cap feels incredibly bad, and I do not think the system had any issues that required it to get reworked this intensively. Sure, the numbers couldve used some tweaking as getting cap was trivial almost, but what is being proposed now is a step back into a time I do not miss. Starting a game and getting punished for every pop that grows, for every system I take? Simply feels bad, incredibly bad.

And killing early game exploration is just about the worst thing that could happen. Ive seen people mention that you "only" had to wait like a year or so for a scientist, but what does that mean? Only a year? So I need to wait five years to get an acceptable amount of discovery ships, and at that point I dont even have that Discovery Tradition that accelerates survey speed. I mean, staring at a screen for five ingame years really isnt all that good of a change. Because remember, not only do you not really explore anymore, you also dont expand that much anymore.

One of the 4 xs stands for exploration, after all. That one got scrapped, together with expansion. And I dont have much hope for PDX going back on this beta, so Im pretty bummed out about this.

 

[TheRevanchist25]

After having been with Stellaris since the beginning, Ive so far liked every single patch. Bought every single DLC so far even, because the game simply scratches that one itch that I have - exploration, discovery and good space stuff.

But this might just turn into the first patch that I really dislike. Removing admin cap feels incredibly bad, and I do not think the system had any issues that required it to get reworked this intensively. Sure, the numbers couldve used some tweaking as getting cap was trivial almost, but what is being proposed now is a step back into a time I do not miss. Starting a game and getting punished for every pop that grows, for every system I take? Simply feels bad, incredibly bad.

And killing early game exploration is just about the worst thing that could happen. Ive seen people mention that you "only" had to wait like a year or so for a scientist, but what does that mean? Only a year? So I need to wait five years to get an acceptable amount of discovery ships, and at that point I dont even have that Discovery Tradition that accelerates survey speed. I mean, staring at a screen for five ingame years really isnt all that good of a change. Because remember, not only do you not really explore anymore, you also dont expand that much anymore.

One of the 4 xs stands for exploration, after all. That one got scrapped, together with expansion. And I dont have much hope for PDX going back on this beta, so Im pretty bummed out about this.

Your mistake was thinking it's a 4x game. It's a game where devs just make arbitrary changes, for the sake of change, and not to fix actual problems. Because anyone who thinks Admin Cap was a "problem" and that destroying exploration isn't...is simply a hypocrite.

 

[Ixal]

After having been with Stellaris since the beginning, Ive so far liked every single patch. Bought every single DLC so far even, because the game simply scratches that one itch that I have - exploration, discovery and good space stuff.

But this might just turn into the first patch that I really dislike. Removing admin cap feels incredibly bad, and I do not think the system had any issues that required it to get reworked this intensively. Sure, the numbers couldve used some tweaking as getting cap was trivial almost, but what is being proposed now is a step back into a time I do not miss. Starting a game and getting punished for every pop that grows, for every system I take? Simply feels bad, incredibly bad.

And killing early game exploration is just about the worst thing that could happen. Ive seen people mention that you "only" had to wait like a year or so for a scientist, but what does that mean? Only a year? So I need to wait five years to get an acceptable amount of discovery ships, and at that point I dont even have that Discovery Tradition that accelerates survey speed. I mean, staring at a screen for five ingame years really isnt all that good of a change. Because remember, not only do you not really explore anymore, you also dont expand that much anymore.

One of the 4 xs stands for exploration, after all. That one got scrapped, together with expansion. And I dont have much hope for PDX going back on this beta, so Im pretty bummed out about this.

Lol, just lol.

Everything you said is just plain wrong.
No, exploration is not dead because you can't instantly spam 6 science ships without thinking. But that seems to be the problem. You seem to want everything instantly without consequences. Balancing early leaders and tradition gain? "Waaaaahhh to hard, want both!!". Judging if further expansion is worthwhile and picking valuable systems to not overextend "Waaaaaaahhh too hard, want everything!!"

 

[Fulgrymm]

Lol, just lol.

Everything you said is just plain wrong.

Insofar as opinions can be "wrong", sure. Why not.

 

[Jouh]

Lol, just lol.

Everything you said is just plain wrong.
No, exploration is not dead because you can't instantly spam 6 science ships without thinking. But that seems to be the problem. You seem to want everything instantly without consequences. Balancing early leaders and tradition gain? "Waaaaahhh to hard, want both!!". Judging if further expansion is worthwhile and picking valuable systems to not overextend "Waaaaaaahhh too hard, want everything!!"

Im not sure why youre being this toxic in your response.

However, tone aside, this is not and has never been about "Wanting everything". Like I explained to you - maybe you missed that - exploration has always been a staple of Stellaris. We have what feels like hundreds of events ranging from small discoveries to precursor events that span over multiple smaller events. To me this is what Stellaris is about, and I very much enjoy this aspect of the game. Its simply fun, reading a ton of flavor texts and taking decisions on how to act. Having played the Beta it feels comparatively dead. The amount of events simply isnt the same, while I now have to spend a lot of time simply waiting for something to happen. That one planet only offers so much micromanagement in the early years.

As to your second "argument" regarding "Without consequences", you seem to be forgetting the simple fact that even before 3.3/right now, we are already making a conscious decision and effort to get science ships early on. We need to sell resources to get scientists early on, resources that we wont be spending on that first science lab or alloy foundry. Resources that wont cushion a negative CG balance. If I want six Scientists at the beginning, I already need to strip my corvettes and sell food/CG/minerals to afford them as early as can be.

So I am sincerely sorry that my opinion has triggered you this much, but Id like to return that opening statement right at you. No, I dont want "everything instantly", no we havent gotten "everything instantly" and yes, "Everything you said is just plain wrong".

Please, if you feel obliged to answer, calm down and stop being this toxic. Youre making a weak argument with all that baseless hate.