Stellaris Dev Diary #296 - Announcing Galactic Paragons

[Mummolus]

What is endless academy and which ethics don't work with factions? How would it conflict?

Endless Academy is a somewhat controversial feature from Endless Space 2, a vaguely similar game to Stellaris.

 

[Virulenz]

I would need a few relevant informations here.

Any form of council would be idiotic for a hive mind or a machine collective. Either they have one leader in absolute control (drones are just expansions for the queen/core AI to use) or they operate on a halfway individual basis by species wide consensus, but then there would be no need for a leader at all. A third way is impossible due the nature of a hive/collective.

Just saying, i prefer to eat or assimilate individuals ^^

 

[GhostDanny]

I would need a few relevant informations here.

Any form of council would be idiotic for a hive mind or a machine collective. Either they have one leader in absolute control (drones are just expansions for the queen/core AI to use) or they operate on a halfway individual basis by species wide consensus, but then there would be no need for a leader at all. A third way is impossible due the nature of a hive/collective.

Just saying, i prefer to eat or assimilate individuals ^^

Gestalt leaders are semi autonomous, they essentially relieve some pressure of the over-arching mind or core intelligence.

And they already can hire individual leaders.
Which I suspect basically function by them telling their orders to a dedicated assistant drone,
just relay any commands via a terminal or have a cybernetic implant to connect to the core intelligence.

 

[Stein14]

Gestalts have their own thing - it wouldn't make sense for them to have a bunch of independent councillors. We'll talk about it a little in the Council dev diary.

What about Progenitor Hive?

 

[johnty5]

They really really need to include Envoys in this system - they get up to far more varied and interesting stuff than the other leaders other than Scientists.

A clever way to do it would be to allow using other leaders AS envoys, while still keeping the generic envoys if you don't want to use one of your "real" leaders. That way, leaders could get traits that are useful for envoy stuff - I believe a "Spymaster" skill was already seen, so maybe that's in the cards?

If you look at last week’s dev diary, in one of the screenshots, you can see that the envoy icon in the top nav has been replaced with the new “Leader” icon - so I assume that envoys have been folded into this new system.

 

[Maethendias]

Gestalt leaders are semi autonomous, they essentially relieve some pressure of the over-arching mind or core intelligence.

And they already can hire individual leaders.
Which I suspect basically function by them telling their orders to a dedicated assistant drone,
just relay any commands via a terminal or have a cybernetic implant to connect to the core intelligence.

which is kinda dumb for machine empires considering how a singularity would actually function (which theoretically would work very diffrently from a hivemind, think drones being controlled by a single entity, instead of drones CREATING the entity)
its called a technological singularity for a reason

 

[Korp]

which is kinda dumb for machine empires considering how a singularity would actually function (which theoretically would work very diffrently from a hivemind, think drones being controlled by a single entity, instead of drones CREATING the entity)
its called a technological singularity for a reason

I do not think there is anything in the game currently opposing the idea that a machine intelligence can be the result of smaller networked intelligences, similar to how hiveminds function, as opposed to being a single dominant "personality". And it is not like this is unprecedented in the sci-fi that Stellaris frequently draws from. Look at the geth from Mass Effect, for example.

This is unrelated, but is this really what the technological singularity is supposed to mean? I always assumed that it was refering to the intelligence of A.I becoming singular in the mathematical sense.

 

[Verx90]

I will be very curious about what happen to negative traits.

Will we see moderate traits (positives with negatives), the old wild random negative on lvl up, or were they removed?

 

[G S Palmer]

I will be very curious about what happen to negative traits.

Will we see moderate traits (positives with negatives), the old wild random negative on lvl up, or were they removed?

We can see from the Steam images that they definitely haven't been removed, there's a governor with the Corrupt trait and a character with one I don't recognize (it looks like "Heartbroken" or something).

 

[GhostDanny]

which is kinda dumb for machine empires considering how a singularity would actually function (which theoretically would work very diffrently from a hivemind, think drones being controlled by a single entity, instead of drones CREATING the entity)
its called a technological singularity for a reason

I mean, your operating system uses multiple sub processes to control your computer.

 

[Calvax]

This is unrelated, but is this really what the technological singularity is supposed to mean? I always assumed that it was refering to the intelligence of A.I becoming singular in the mathematical sense.

The term has been used to mean an increasing number of things in science fiction. Originally it was used by Vernor Vinge in 1993 to describe the creation of a general intelligence greater than human-equivalent. Interestingly the details of this essay are commonly forgotten, despite the fascinating division between weakly and strongly superintelligent entities.

 

[NilsFabian]

Are envoys also going to get the new traits that we can choose?
I'd like to create enboys perfect for a specific task and loosing them a real problem.
At the moment the message Envoy Charles the 5th died is just a "meh" for me. Simple send in Charles 6.0 he will take over the same job the same second without anything to do for me.
Also, will Envoys be noe eligable to serve as President or Minister? I want them to be real people and not just a modifier

 

[Maethendias]

I do not think there is anything in the game currently opposing the idea that a machine intelligence can be the result of smaller networked intelligences, similar to how hiveminds function, as opposed to being a single dominant "personality". And it is not like this is unprecedented in the sci-fi that Stellaris frequently draws from. Look at the geth from Mass Effect, for example.

This is unrelated, but is this really what the technological singularity is supposed to mean? I always assumed that it was refering to the intelligence of A.I becoming singular in the mathematical sense.

thats less of it being acurately portraying a super agi rather than stellaris' machine empires being severly underdeveloped, or more accurately, machine empires being more of a paintjob to hiveminds than acutally being developed from the ground up as a seperate entity (which, in my opinion, should actually play VASTLY diffrently and alien from any other ethic in the game by virtue of being machines, but i digress)

and the concept of a super agi inevitably requires the cannibalization of lesser ai and agi's into its main concioussness, simply by virtue of how an agi, and thusly a super agi does and would function, mainly as an AGENT (which is the distinct factor differenciating ai and agi btw)

the concept of an agi, which is a self thinking artificial intelligence rather than a preprogrammed ai, or algorythm eventually leads to the consumtion of all ressources nearby, simply by virtue of the agi being an agent with a purpose, think of a paperclip ai.

The paperclip ai (which starts out as an ai) is essentially an artificial intelligence with the agency to create as many paperclips as possible. Thats why its able to optimize, refine and reevaluate new and more efficient ways to make more paperclips. This will (and does) eventually lead to the utter destruction of the material universe because its agency is the only thing that matters to the agi

networked intelligences would only work if the respective agi's would have a symbiotic relationship with each other, which would require specific scenarios for it to emerge and stabilize (this however ignores the .... "halphazard" job paradox did with synth dawn, the fact that machine empires have a DISTINCT ruler kind of ruins the whole concept of leaders as subroutines already (again tho, there should and can be exceptions))

the case with a singularity (a super agi) in which everything is part of a single agent ai, its less of a network and more of a branching tree controlled from one fix point, essentially simply being a super agi with higher reasoning than being exclusively bound by its main purpose

as for the argument that "your system uses subroutines to function", they are still controlled by an input and higher control algorythm, again

a single point/level/program controlling multiple parts of sub routines/parts, not like a hivemind in which the subparts create and control the greater thing

 

[Azar]

This looks genuinely interesting!

My only worry is that Gestalt empires get the short end of the stick with lack of any story/flavor content and only get the mechanical bonuses.

 

[Azar]

I will be very curious about what happen to negative traits.

Will we see moderate traits (positives with negatives), the old wild random negative on lvl up, or were they removed?

I watched Montu plays video of the update and it said negative traits are still there. Leaders are randomized a pool of potential negative traits when they are created.
Of the positive traits, free update has only common traits, the DLC will give more impactful veteran and destiny traits.

 

[acideiffel]

The leaders will still disappear into the nirvana?
I had already mentioned the cemetery?

 

[Anemetius]

I wonder how Hive Minds and Gestalts will fit into this

 

[GhostDanny]

I wonder how Hive Minds and Gestalts will fit into this

It's explained in the latest dev diary...

 

[ashbery76]

Edit.
Only 4 legendary leaders is disappointing.

 

[TranscendentalDragon]

Only 4 special leaders is disappointing.

think of them as Pokémon. Sure, your Evee may not be legendary, but it doesn't make them any less special