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Stellaris Dev Diary #28 - The Project Lead speaks

Good news everyone!

Today’s Dev Diary will be about whatever I want it to be about! When I thought about what I would write in this dev diary I had a really hard time deciding what I should write. Most people told me that I should write about who I am and what I do, but I thought that felt a little self-absorbed. But anyway, let’s begin with being self-absorbed...

My name is Rikard Åslund and I have worked at PDS since 2011. Initially I worked as a programmer and then senior programmer, but these days my main focus is being the project lead for Stellaris. I have worked on a bunch of different projects during my years here but I spent most of them working on EU4. After EU4 I moved to Stellaris to work as a senior programmer, but I took over as project lead after some time.

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As a project lead my main responsibility is to handle the execution of the project and making sure that we do that within set budget and time frames. Since I’m also the most senior programmer on the team I have also worked as a programmer lead (tech lead). These days I’m trying to step back from programming because I simply don’t have the time. This is something I feel confident doing since my team is so highly skilled, but it’s also hurtful since I love programming so much. Because of that I still try to write a couple of lines of code everyday, to keep my mind sane between all the different budget and time follow-up meetings.

When I think about Stellaris I feel three different strong loves; the team, the game and the players. I have the privilege to spend each day surrounded by highly skilled and passionate people, they are the makers of the game and the ones that should receive all credit. I feel so extremely proud of what the team has achieved, we have managed to create a such a good game in a setting we have never worked in before.

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This game is in my personal opinion the best game PDS has ever created. First of all let me say that I love our other historical grand strategy games, no other games let you relive and feel history at such a grand scale. With that said I however have to say that sci-fi games have always had a certain attraction to me that few other games ever had. I love the feeling of dreaming myself away to an alien world and the feeling of exploring something new. Stellaris gives me exactly that possibility, I get to dream myself away.

Now when the release is incoming you always feel as a developer that you would like to have some more time. This feeling is completely normal and if someone ever tells you that they are completely done and have nothing more to add, you should probably not buy that game because it will suck. With Stellaris I know in my heart that we have a really good product in our hands, I think the game would be really well received even if we released it tomorrow (no we won’t), but we are in no way done with this game. We have plans for working with this game for a really long time and I’m really looking forward to see how this game gets shaped by our players. I usually say that we probably don’t know exactly what Stellaris is until a year after release, I’m really looking forward to be along for that ride with you guys.

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Next week we will talk about Pop Factions and Elections, don't miss it!

Fun fact: Stellaris was originally planned to have a locked camera like our other games, so that it felt more like a 2D map. The rotatable camera was implemented as a test because we had a hunch it might work better and it turned out so good that we kept it. Meaning that in Stellaris, in comparison to our other games, you can always rotate the camera by holding the right mouse button.
 
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Glad to hear from you, and I'm very much looking forward to your game! The hype is stronk with this one...
 
A Black Hole is a bit of a misnomer. It's only 'black' because light doesn't escape it and it's called a 'hole' because everything that gets close falls into it's gravity well. It's far more likely that black holes are spherical, hyper dense stellar remnants.
 
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FieldMedic said:
A Black Hole is a bit of a misnomer. It's only 'black' because light doesn't escape it and it's called a 'hole' because everything that gets close falls into it's gravity well. It's far more likely that black holes are spherical, hyper dense stellar remnants.
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By hyper-dense stellar remnant, are you referring to the singularity? While the event horizon of a non-rotating black hole is spherical, the singularity, as far as we know, is not. A non-rotating singularity can't have a shape because it's nothing--just a 1-dimensional point of infinite density and gravity. A rotating singularity would have the shape of a ring.
 
Aszhalinde said:
By hyper-dense stellar remnant, are you referring to the singularity? While the event horizon of a non-rotating black hole is spherical, the singularity, as far as we know, is not. A non-rotating singularity can't have a shape because it's nothing--just a 1-dimensional point of infinite density and gravity. A rotating singularity would have the shape of a ring.
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Complex math tells us that the event horizon isn't necessarily spherical either. A rotating black hole will produce two event horizons (kinda... it's complicated), one an oblate spheroid (eggish shape) and one spherical, contacting the oblate spheroid at two points. Of course, this is in four dimensions. Once you get into the higher dimensions (The 11 that we theorize exist) the shape gets more complicated still.

Also, remember this isn't necessarily the finished product.... They may not have wanted to show us the black hole art until we discover one on our own? Or perhaps the art isn't finished.
 
FieldMedic said:
A Black Hole is a bit of a misnomer. It's only 'black' because light doesn't escape it and it's called a 'hole' because everything that gets close falls into it's gravity well.
Click to expand...
That sounds like the opposite of a misnomer, then.
A black hole is the blackest thing there is, and the hole-iest thing there is.
You literally could not name it better.
 
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Oscot said:
That sounds like the opposite of a misnomer, then.
A black hole is the blackest thing there is, and the hole-iest thing there is.
You literally could not name it better.
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When first theorized, they were called "dark stars", because they were so dense that light could not escape the "surface" of such a star. And black holes are, by and large, (one of) the product(s) of the destruction of massive stars.
 
General Karthos said:
When first theorized, they were called "dark stars", because they were so dense that light could not escape the "surface" of such a star. And black holes are, by and large, (one of) the product(s) of the destruction of massive stars.
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And that was a crap name, because they're not stars.
QED
 
Oh dear, think i see an event horizon or two, which answers my question ; will this game be based on outmoded Biblical/Einstein astrophysics, or the real stuff -- E.U., Electric Universe ? what a pity
 
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Mechanical Franz said:
Oh dear, think i see an event horizon or two, which answers my question ; will this game be based on outmoded Biblical/Einstein astrophysics, or the real stuff -- E.U., Electric Universe ? what a pity
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The what?
*Hits wiki*
"See plasma cosmology"
"See non-standard cosmology"
While plasma cosmology has never had the support of most astronomers or physicists, a small number of plasma researchers have continued to promote and develop the approach, and publish in the special issues of the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science.
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As of 2016, the vast majority of researchers openly reject plasma cosmology because it does not match modern observations of astrophysical phenomena or accepted cosmological theory.
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Yeah, using the astrophysical model supported by the majority of astronomers and physicists, that's such a pity.
 
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Hah, what's all this silliness about "astronomers" and "physicists" and their "astrophysical models", "degrees" and "sanity"? It is clear that the Stellaris devs understand the true nature of the universe:

"Our science has proved that consciousness begets reality. We regard with patience the childlike efforts of those who delude themselves as they play with their blocks of 'hard matter'."

[Before you ask: the above is the quote for the Fanatic Spiritualist ethos, and yes, I am joking! But I also intend to play a research-focused Fanatic Spiritualist empire to see how far I can ride the space-magic crazy train. Hopefully straight into Tzeentch's gaping maw.]
 
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"Now when the release is incoming you always feel as a developer that you would like to have some more time." +150

At the beginning you always seem to have so much time and a month away from you wish you always had "Just one more month"!
 
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Zoft said:
My name is Rikard Åslund and I have worked at PDS since 2011. ... I took over as project lead after [five years total].
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Isn't that really impressive? Five years from new hire (in non-management position) to project lead on the big new IP? Paradox isn't so chaotic that this is normal, is it?
 
It's a tiny company with tiny dev teams. I don't see what's so unusual about it, anyway - was he supposed to be an indentured laborer for 10 years first before getting an intern to manage? It's a software company, not the apparatus of the Soviet Politburo.
 
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Cruxador said:
Isn't that really impressive? Five years from new hire (in non-management position) to project lead on the big new IP? Paradox isn't so chaotic that this is normal, is it?
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A good game company will see talent and allow it's hard working employees to move up within the company. Rikard was obviously more than capable of doing so and these types of business practices need to be more common I'd say. But my opinion may be biased here.
 
FieldMedic said:
A Black Hole is a bit of a misnomer. It's only 'black' because light doesn't escape it and it's called a 'hole' because everything that gets close falls into it's gravity well. It's far more likely that black holes are spherical, hyper dense stellar remnants.
Click to expand...

Calling a black hole "black" is not really a misnomer. Black is not a color on the light spectrum, it is the absence of light. When looking at a black hole, no photons would be emitted from it to your eyes, making it black to an onlooker.

Of course there are many other crazy effects, but they most definitely would appear black in some regard relative to light emitting bodies around it.
 
All this talks about "falling into nothingness" remind me of little story i read on /hfy/ few months ago, in which humanity is the only race in the galaxy that is not scared of space. Good read.

Now, are we 100% certain this is indeed a blackhole? Maybe these planets are orbiting a wormhole? :)
 
chopak said:
All this talks about "falling into nothingness" remind me of little story i read on /hfy/ few months ago, in which humanity is the only race in the galaxy that is not scared of space. Good read.
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"Not being scared of space" sounds profoundly maladaptive for creatures that, y'know, die horribly when exposed to it.

chopak said:
Now, are we 100% certain this is indeed a blackhole? Maybe these planets are orbiting a wormhole? :)
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At the end of last week's Blorgstream Wiz's science ship was heading towards one, so we will probably know imminently.
 
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