Stellaris Dev Diary #282 - Announcing First Contact

[tribnia]

Cool.
Won't be satisfied if there's no War of the Worlds or The Road Not Taken memes.

Edit: Considering primitive policies, I hope there could be some hunting ground choice as in Predator.
Or reservations as in early versions.
Or blood tax policy to keep them primitive but offer high-quality soldiers.

 

[Atruejedi]

Does this mean two origins that have you deal with one specific empire with one specific name every time? Rather than something more randomized like Lost Colony?

To be honest, I really hope not. That would get old very fast for me.

This dude's right. As much as I like the Toxic God origin, it feels very... one-or-two playthroughs.

 

[QHR_ftw]

Any chance that interactions with presapients will be updated as well? Or will this just be expanding interactions with intelligent primitives?

 

[Harkinian's Dinner]

I was hoping for a more generalized pre-FTL challenging origin, where you start out with almost nothing and have to research the current starting technologies. The game was mostly like that originally (colony ships had to be researched and so on), and I enjoyed the slow and flavorful humble beginnings start. It's something that has been lost in the current version of the game in order to cater to players who have played hundreds of games and don't want to waste time, but an option to play like that still would be appreciated.

 

[G S Palmer]

Please please please don't make the origins hyperspecific. The whole point of Stellaris is roleplay and emergent storytelling through interesting combinations of events, not a to be a curated narrative experience.

 

[InvisibleBison]

I can see it as a way to increase the viability of the smaller ship classes in the late game

I suppose so, but I don't think making smaller ship classes viable in the late game is a worthwhile goal.

 

[zZander56]

Nobody saw this coming in a Story Pack, but there's also Cloaking... We'll reveal more about that later.

Hmm. Maybe some smuggling mechanics to go along with it? Maybe another use for my mercenaries?

Everything looks great, and I'm especially excited for the civics and the Fear of the Dark origin.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

I suppose so, but I don't think making smaller ship classes viable in the late game is a worthwhile goal.

It's a direction that the recent combat update moved things towards.

Making mixed fleets (i.e. having small classes still viable late game) is a stated goal, so the devs appear to think it *is* worthwhile to prevent monobattleship fleets.

 

[Lorenerd11]

Love this design.

We're getting a new shipset? That'd be cool.

 

[Lorenerd11]

I'm definitely in the camp of not caring for these hyper specific origins. It really makes every galaxy feel samey and hurts roleplay. Being able to customize this enemy empire would be great, but randomized (at least to a degree, if it needs to fulfill a certain role like "authoritarian MegaCorp" or so that's fine, like Fallen Empires).

This specific empire might not actually be explicitly mentioned in-game, and might simply be used as flavor for the dev diaries.

The screenshot of the introductory text on the DLC's Steam page makes no mention of it.

 

[Interesting Meat 222182]

Wonder how will the primitives react when we blow up planets in their solar systems? Or even their moon? Or building Dyson Sphere around their sun?
That aside, please fix matter decompressor bug. It make no sense that habitats block their construction.

 

[NilsFabian]

Well, I am not certain how it should work against normal empires, but I can definitely see why cloaking would be needed to keep primitives unaware of your activities.

Hmm sometimes it might be helpful to be able to send your science ship through an empire with closed borders. How else would you manage to get access to those unsurveyed systems.

About the primitives, yeah, I can see myriad of events when the cloaking of the observation post fails.
Imagine the voyager probes colliding with a cloaked mining station around the gas giants in our solar system just because the Senioar Cloaking Technican Urgh Blorg was sleeping while on duty

 

[Me_]

I'm really sorry for all the people complaining about origins that are not 100% randomised and relatively bland.

Do you also get no joy from movies, books, music, theater, games with plot and other non-randomised forms of entertainment?

I am however wondering what are they basing their "everything will always be the same with these origins" speculations about with zero evidence supporting it in the screenshots revealed so far.

 

[Evethor]

I`m so f.ing stoked for this!

 

[NilsFabian]

I`m so f.ing stoked for this!

I am annoyed
They've announced it and now we have to wait for 2 month at least before they release it. Meaning that Stellaris is now in the process of getting boring, because whats the point playing the game anymore with the new DLC coming...

 

[Red Death]

Do you also get no joy from movies, books, music, theater, games with plot and other non-randomised forms of entertainment?

This is a dumb strawman. I do get joy from those, but when I do play a game focused on partially customized and partially randomised storytelling, I would like the money I pay for it to go towards enhancing those aspects. If I want a nice, hand-crafted story experience, I'll go to any of those forms of entertainment. Similarly, I would prefer if George R R Martin doesn't suddenly make Winds of Winter a choose-your-own-adventure book.

I am however wondering what are they basing their "everything will always be the same with these origins" speculations about with zero evidence supporting it in the screenshots revealed so far.

We're not sure, we're just going off how they chose to word it in their dev diary (see below). That's why people are asking for clarification.

Two Challenging Origins - Payback and Broken Shackles - revolve around the struggles of empires against the oppressive Minamar Specialized Industries

From that wording it seems like it would be the equivalent of Lost Colony, Common Ground, Hegemon, Scion or Imperial Fiefdom always spawning the same, identical empires. From those, Imperial Fiefdom is already rigid enough that it harms replayability for me personally, but at least the name is different, which saves the immersion aspect. I don't want every single Broken Shackles empire I ever create, in every Galaxy, to deal with an empire called "Minamar Specialized Industries".

But again, I'm not condemning the game, just waiting to see what the actual implementation is.

 

[Me_]

at least the name is different, which saves the immersion aspect. I don't want every single Broken Shackles empire I ever create, in every Galaxy, to deal with an empire called "Minamar Specialized Industries".

Why? How? It's the randomness that kills immersion. The fact that Commander Shephard was Commander Shephard is what gave Mass Effect immersion.

[Random planet or system name] [Random government type descriptor] Empire is a very repeating scheme. All the randomly generated names lack any weight or meaning precisely because they have to be generic to be usable by any empire. It takes immersion and throws it out a window. Imagine if instead of France, Germany, Sweden the map of Europe had Paris Country, Berlin State and Stockholm Nation. Once you see the patterns they begin to stick in your eyes like pins.

And how many times do people actually play the same origins? I don't think there's an origin I played more than twice. I can certainly stand playing agains the same country twice. I ALREADY DO, because the RNG generated names repeat as well - I've seen that happen an AI empire had the same randomly generated name as one of the empires I used to play as (I tend to use the randomly generated names).

 

[Red Death]

It's the randomness that kills immersion.

For you.

The lack of immersion I was speaking of was like if on a second playthrough of Mass Effect you would be placed in an entirely different galaxy with a different history. Yet, somehow, inexplicably, the main character would still be the same identical Commander Shepard. That would make the world of that second playthrough completely unbelievable for me. Again though, it's not a valid comparison, because Stellaris is not a game trying to tell a single story with branches and options within it.

[Random planet or system name] [Random government type descriptor] Empire is a very repeating scheme. All the randomly generated names lack any weight or meaning precisely because they have to be generic to be usable by any empire. It takes immersion and throws it out a window. Imagine if instead of France, Germany, Sweden the map of Europe had Paris Country, Berlin State and Stockholm Nation. Once you see the patterns they begin to stick in your eyes like pins.

I agree overall that the randomisation is limited in how long it can keep things looking novel (This can be greatly improved by increasing the number of options and possible patterns available). But a specific name is only novel once. And to me, "Minamar Specialized Industries" sounds just as generic as any other Stellaris empire name, only difference being that I'm going to see it more often.

Do you think populating a Stellaris galaxy with the same specfic pre-made empires every time would be an improvement compared to how it is now? I wouldn't. That's not what Stellaris is designed for, plenty of other games do that.


I think we've drifted far enough off-topic now, if you want to discuss more, make a thread.

 

[Ikael]

A story pack DLC! Long time no see! Well, this looks quite cool. Give me a flavorful non-randomized story with many branches for maximum replay value, and I will be a happy camper.

And if this comes out with more fleshed-out uplifting/enlightening mechanics, even better. I would love it if helping primitives becomes some kind of "long-term investment" with meaningful rewards other than getting an annoying small protectorate.

And cloaking? Oh boy. Is that a espionage rework that I am seeing?

 

[TrotBot]

Hi everyone!

About twenty minutes after we posted Dev Diary 280, the community had largely decoded the message we hid in there... CONTACT IS COMING.

Last week, we had A Message from Minamar Specialized Industries, and it's time to take them up on that offer. (And you deciphered the message in there even more quickly!)

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I'm pleased to announce that the First Contact Story Pack will be released alongside the Stellaris 3.7 "Canis Minor" update. Click here to wishlist the Story Pack.

Look to the Stars, For You Are Not Alone​

For countless ages, your people have looked to the stars with wonder - is there anybody else out there? When we meet, will they be friends or enemies? Will we be the ones to discover them, or are they already here, hiding in plain sight?

The First Contact Story Pack focuses on the experiences of these Pre-FTL civilizations, both from the point of view of the civilizations themselves as well as from the observers. Observation has been revamped with new enhanced systems relating to civilization Awareness, Diplomacy, and Espionage. New Insights can be learned from observing civilizations that have not been corrupted by the galaxy as a whole.

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The Universe Is Cruel, But Also Awe-Inspiring

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Two Challenging Origins - Payback and Broken Shackles - revolve around the struggles of empires against the oppressive Minamar Specialized Industries, while a third standard Origin - Fear of the Dark - examines the fine line between paranoia and prudence. As befits a Story Pack, all three of First Contact's Origins are heavily narrative focused.

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Several new low-technology civics can change the way you take your first steps to the stars or how you interact with the pre-FTL civilizations you find.

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Nobody saw this coming in a Story Pack, but there's also Cloaking... We'll reveal more about that later.

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WISHLIST TODAY!​

This Thursday, we'll discuss the vision and themes of First Contact in greater detail.

See you then!

Omg THERE'S A SLAVE UPRISING ORIGIN!

THIS IS NOT A DRILL!