Stellaris Dev Diary #261 - Challenge Accepted

[ZomgK3tchup]

I imagine "all crises simultaneously" would be a really big project.

Having all three on the map at once would likely create unintended behaviors between them and Paradox would want to iron all that out before releasing it. It's a really cool idea, but I understand why it's not something they could have slapped together during their downtime in the summer.

 

[Idle America]

Edit: And here is hoping the Stellaris team sees the light that the Victoria team saw and allows mods/no ironman for achievements.

And the HOI4 team, too... especially considering every single achievement turns into a world conquest.

 

[MarkAngelo]

@Eladrin HOW DID YOUR COMBAT REWOWK GO DUDE OMG IM DYING TO KNOW WOOOOOOOH

 

[Gritzel]

Humanoids:
View attachment 868129
Strange Mood - As a Master Crafter empire, fully construct a megastructure while you have a Covenant with a Shroud entity.

A sneaky Dwarf Fortress reference I see. Urists of the world unite!!

 

[Eladrin]

@Eladrin HOW DID YOUR COMBAT REWOWK GO DUDE OMG IM DYING TO KNOW WOOOOOOOH

Ongoing. Anything we decide to do from the combat rebalancing experiments will definitely not be in Fornax, I'd like to put it up in an open beta beforehand - this is one of those scenarios where the data would be very useful.

I'm going to hold a small design talk at PDXCon where I'll be going through what we're thinking (earlier than I'd normally be comfortable with, since we're still very much in the experimental phase ) alongside some of the things @Alfray Stryke 's been up to.

A sneaky Dwarf Fortress reference I see.

It probably should have required Subterranean, huh?

 

[Alfray Stryke]

I'm going to hold a small design talk at PDXCon where I'll be going through what we're thinking (earlier than I'd normally be comfortable with, since we're still very much in the experimental phase ) alongside some of the things @Alfray Stryke 's been up to.

I'm looking forward to talking about some of the untraditional things I've been experimenting with.

It probably should have required Subterranean, huh?

Fine, I'll add Subterranean to the requirements on Monday.

 

[Eladrin]

Time to blow up a holy world.

We're really mean to the Spiritualist fallen empires.

Name suggestion: Fixer Upper

I like that, I'll pass the suggestion along next week and see what the others think.

Fine, I'll add Subterranean to the requirements on Monday.

It's Saturday, what are you doing on the forum?

So it does not require Permanent Employment?

No, I didn't want to make it too restrictive.

Is it just me, or is the banner for the Dev diary new art? Seems like a "bad things are happening" event art, so possibly more situations coming soon?

It's new art, I think the CD team requested it for the bankruptcy event. But I love it.

Unfortunately, due to how the achievements are checked, they can’t be awarded retroactively.

If they have a save lying around they might be able to load it and get it. Depends on the exact triggers.

Please add an option to select level or at least disable the AI vassals difficulty debuff.

This seems like a good idea. It won't be in for Fornax, but I'll put it on the list.

Huh, I love the idea of having to deal with all the crises but I have to admit I'm disappointed you cant have them all at once

The end game crises share some flags, so they'll interfere with each other to some extent if run simultaneously. (For example, the Unbidden might think they're doing better than they actually are, if the Prethoryn are stomping part of the galaxy, triggering the secondary and tertiary factions to spawn at inappropriate times.) Detangling them is possible, but a larger task than adding sequential crises, which we felt was pretty safe.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

It's Saturday, what are you doing on the forum?

What are you doing on the forum?

It was the more recently opened tab on my phone's web browser, so my process this morning was wake up -> open web browser on phone -> see notification from Eladrin.

 

[Starfury]

What are you doing on the forum?

It was the more recently opened tab on my phone's web browser, so my process this morning was wake up -> open web browser on phone -> see notification from Eladrin.

Are you sure he wasn't asking why you weren't working? After all, every day ending in y is a good day to work

 

[HFY]

Are you sure he wasn't asking why you weren't working? After all, every day ending in y is a good day to work

Found the Extended Shifts monitoring AI.

 

[SephirothWS]

I asked this back in June, and got a ton of red x reactions as a result of that question, but I am still serious. When will all of this work on achievements be actually viable of use for those of us playing modded games? We still perform all of the same tasks, why are we DENIED the ability to unlock achievements because we've decided to use the MOD api the game PROVIDES to end-users to create/enjoy user-generated content within the game? I would absolutely LOVE to unlock the game's achievements, but I don't want to be stuck playing a non-modded ironman game for this purpose.

 

[The_Boominator]

I asked this back in June, and got a ton of red x reactions as a result of that question, but I am still serious. When will all of this work on achievements be actually viable of use for those of us playing modded games? We still perform all of the same tasks, why are we DENIED the ability to unlock achievements because we've decided to use the MOD api the game PROVIDES to end-users to create/enjoy user-generated content within the game? I would absolutely LOVE to unlock the game's achievements, but I don't want to be stuck playing a non-modded ironman game for this purpose.

Achievements are accomplishments in the base game as it is endorsed by the developers and played by the majority of players.
Mods introduce new content which may make achievements easier, thereby making them more achievable.
You can play modded Stellaris and earn achievements so long as your mods do not affect the checksum.

If you want to earn achievements that the community recognizes, you have to play the game the community recognizes. If you want validation for your accomplishments in modded playthroughs, post on the cool screenshot thread or on the Stellaris subreddit.

So when will achievements be accessible to players using modded content? In short: always and never. Because you can always play the unmodded game and you can always try to accomplish these tasks in modded playthroughs, but Paradox will likely never make achievements mod-compatible because of the nature of achievements. Modded savegames disable achievements for the same reason.

 

[MadCow94]

Victoria 3 won't require a checksum for achievements. I'm hoping that policy is patched into Stellaris at some point.

 

[fusei]

Well this is how achievements look in the game files and I guess if they ever don't require the correct checksum it will take 0.3 seconds for a mod to appear that unlocks all of them instantly.

achievement_colonize = {
    id = 1

    possible = {
        is_ironman = yes
    }

    happened = {
        num_owned_planets > 1
    }
}

 

[Pancakelord]

@Eladrin Is there any potential to unlock galaxy map customisation a bit?

Specifically, letting us drop in configs like this?

(to get this to work, i need to swap out spiral_2.txt or spiral_4.txt).

(suprisingly the background galactic dust follows the arms, always assumed it was a preset shape)

Or moving some/all of these properties in to an "advanced"/collapsed tab in the game-start UI? (a bit like how vassalisation rework gave us a good ui for a number of pre-existing properties)
Stuff like cluster size/density, %inter-arm connections, number of nebulae, arm separation, map seed, number of rings (to have double doughnut galaxies), more granularity on ruined megastructure spawns and so on.

Galaxy map customisation needs some love.

 

[grommile]

I guess if they ever don't require the correct checksum it will take 0.3 seconds for a mod to appear that unlocks all of them instantly.

Anyone who would use that mod could just as easily use Steam Achievement Manager.

 

[Lorenerd11]

I asked this back in June, and got a ton of red x reactions as a result of that question, but I am still serious. When will all of this work on achievements be actually viable of use for those of us playing modded games? We still perform all of the same tasks, why are we DENIED the ability to unlock achievements because we've decided to use the MOD api the game PROVIDES to end-users to create/enjoy user-generated content within the game? I would absolutely LOVE to unlock the game's achievements, but I don't want to be stuck playing a non-modded ironman game for this purpose.

Yeah, I hate it.

Some of the mods I play with are entirely cosmetic, or extremely minor tweaks that do not affect the difficulty of getting those achievements in the slightest. Yet even the slightest of changes lock you out completely of getting any achievements, even if it's just a mod to add more Earth textures for different climate types.

Achievements are accomplishments in the base game as it is endorsed by the developers and played by the majority of players.
Mods introduce new content which may make achievements easier, thereby making them more achievable.
You can play modded Stellaris and earn achievements so long as your mods do not affect the checksum.

If you want to earn achievements that the community recognizes, you have to play the game the community recognizes. If you want validation for your accomplishments in modded playthroughs, post on the cool screenshot thread or on the Stellaris subreddit.

So when will achievements be accessible to players using modded content? In short: always and never. Because you can always play the unmodded game and you can always try to accomplish these tasks in modded playthroughs, but Paradox will likely never make achievements mod-compatible because of the nature of achievements. Modded savegames disable achievements for the same reason.

Except this is nonsense, someone can just use Steam Achievement Manager to unlock all achievements instantaneously, and what this really does is just take the satisfaction away from people who want to get the achievements through proper (albeit modified) gameplay.

Most other games don't disable achievements based on the use of mods or cheats at all, the achievements are there more for the player's satisfaction than anything else.

 

[TheLoneGunman]

The Crisis Type setting will now have an option for All, which will spawn every crisis sequentially, with each subsequent crisis being stronger than the previous. The galaxy is counting on you. No pressure.

This makes me happy.

 

[HFY]

Achievements are accomplishments in the base game as it is endorsed by the developers and played by the majority of players.

According to Steam, fewer than 30% of players have the "colonized a planet" achievement.

Spoiler

Those are the two most common achievements. Every other achievement is a smaller % of players.

Does this mean 70% of players have never colonized a planet? OR does it mean that 70% of players started using mods before getting that far?

Evidence seems to indicate that the vast majority of players do not play unmodded ironman.

 

[Starfury]

According to Steam, > 30% of players have the "colonized a planet" achievement.

Spoiler

View attachment 869629

Those are the two most common achievements. Every other achievement is a smaller % of players.

Does this mean 70% of players have never colonized a planet? OR does it mean that 70% of players started using mods before getting that far?

Evidence seems to indicate that the vast majority of players do not play unmodded ironman.

Though to be fair, one has to assume that of those 70%, by far the larger part play unmodded non-ironman rather than modded ironman. So by far the biggest hurdle for achievements is playing ironman.

But since you can still easily "savescum" or even edit the save game on ironman, I think you might as well throw out the "no achievements without ironman" rule. And once you've done that, you might as well throw out the "no achievements when playing with mods" rule.

After all, it's lnot ike we're in the Olympics. The only one you're really cheating by getting achievements with console/mods/cheats/reloading/whatever is yourself.