Stellaris Dev Diary #303 - Stellaris with a Twist Community Event!

[zZander56]

The whole point of the perk should be doing a quick fly by and stealing some stuff and leaving

Big +1 here. Raiding definitely needs to be fixed, but it should retain its role.

 

[corsairmarks]

I liked the scaling fleet cap per Admiral level. Felt like my Admiral became more skilled at command as they levelled up. However, I can also appreciate some players did not like their fleets automatically splitting upon death of the leader.

Easy enough to mod. There are static modifiers in common/static_modifiers/00_static_modifiers.txt that correspond to the level effect of each leader type (e.g. admiral_skill). Here's the 3.8.2 version:

skill_admiral = {
    ship_fire_rate_mult = 0.03
    command_limit_add = 10
    ship_disengage_opportunities_add = 0.2
}

Static modifiers are FIOS, so name your file with that content starting with 3 0s in order to load first - e.g. 000_my_admiral_level_skill.txt

 

[Harkinian's Dinner]

Can't the command limit issue be resolved quite easily by re-implementing the increase from admiral levels and simply not splitting the fleet when the admiral dies?

That's the only part of it that bothers everyone. Just allow the fleet to remain as it is when the admiral dies, showing the command limit as for example 150/120. Obviously if ships are destroyed or removed from the fleet, you can't add more until you're below the new, lower cap. Simple.

Maybe it would still be too annoying to have fleets split when you just move the admiral to a different fleet though. The fleet can't be allowed to stay above cap in that case, or you'd just move your best admiral from fleet to fleet to boost all their command limits.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

That feels more like players punishing themselves more than it being a dangerous exploit.

I would tend to agree, if it weren't the only effective way to use that governor trait. Without that swapping around, an Architectural Interest planet/sector governor saves you fewer minerals (on a planet constantly building) than you would have gotten from Private Mines.... before the patch. Now it's less than half of what you'd get from the flat mineral trait.

 

[luxeritib]

I would tend to agree, if it weren't the only effective way to use that governor trait. Without that swapping around, an Architectural Interest planet/sector governor saves you fewer minerals (on a planet constantly building) than you would have gotten from Private Mines.... before the patch. Now it's less than half of what you'd get from the flat mineral trait.

Private Mines, Homesteader, Entrepreneur, Scrapper... they give too much value for a common leader trait. A tier 2 Homesteader trait gives +32 food per month while Legendary Leader Azaryn's unique trait gives +30 food per month. Flat resource traits just became too powerful...

 

[Scorpio_Shirica]

Sad to not hear anything about the leader cap. It's still in a terrible state and the discussions about it have turned the forum into as hostile and toxic a place as I've ever seen it, far exceeding both the old FTL cull and Mega Corp release.

I wonder the cause of this. I think a lot of us that enjoy larger empires and bigger sandbox type maps probably feel the negative impact from the caps the most. From the lack of communication from the devs on this, I think they simply have no idea how to balance it for that type of play and it was left out of scope for designing the DLC. We'll probably have to wait until after the summer and they've had time to experiment on any potential ways to address it before we hear anything.

 

[ergie]

Any word about the new notification system?It blocks ai messages and yours too in the same option, so if you block for instance, the research treaties, the game wont inform you if you're offered one

 

[A2ch0n]

Any word about the new notification system?It blocks ai messages and yours too in the same option, so if you block for instance, the research treaties, the game wont inform you if you're offered one

That is a good reminder of you! We need a distinction between treaties proposed to the player empire and those made between other empires. I definitely want to know if someone offer me something but except for war declarations/ends and rivalries i don't need to know if they make treaties to each other.

I made of course the same mistake by blocking those message and learned the hard way why i didn't get any offerings anymore. Luckily it can be easily reverted. But to be fair, except that i really like the control we got on the messages. The system just need some smaller refinement.

 

[DeathMaker900]

Love a lot of the changes in 3.8.3 but the change to Science Division, Colonial Viceroys, and War Games makes them completely useless. Leader cost and upkeep is totally irrelevant after the first 20 years.

 

[Imajicus]

Dear devs, why no single word to the leader cap??

It feels so unsatifying having the game taunting me all the time everywhere with open positions while it doen't allow me to staff those. This cap feels artificial because it has no relation to ingame-reality and therefore breaks immersion (yes, Stellaris is a story driven game). Why a cap of 7? WT*, It makes no sense. Sorry.

I guess you needed to change the leader system as a foundation for Paragons, but you made it worse with that. Balancing seemed to be an issue because of the new overpowered paragon leaders, but instead of inventing a nice and claen solution (via costs, upkeep and what not, you are the experts!), you just did this low effort workaround. Yes, lets call it what it is: a workaround. Why is balancing an issue at all if all other empires can use leaders equally the same? Interesting is, that the leader cap is still there if you disable the new dlc. Caps are an abstractions that boardgames often need to use to reduce complexity and remain playable in finity time, but I'm not playing a board game here, nor do I want to. Stellaris does sophisticated calculations and mechanics all over the place that make the game so great. Why not here?

Paradox, please try to improve this aspect of the game. Thanks!

Sorry for my bad English.

 

[Dr. B]

I would tend to agree, if it weren't the only effective way to use that governor trait. Without that swapping around, an Architectural Interest planet/sector governor saves you fewer minerals (on a planet constantly building) than you would have gotten from Private Mines.... before the patch. Now it's less than half of what you'd get from the flat mineral trait.

Imagine not moving a retired fleet officer or shipwright governor around from planet w/shipyard to planet w/shipyard when constructing a huge fleet, queing up a horde of ships and saving 10000s of alloys.

 

[Eswahrt]

4. And lastly, shouldn't a certain amount of pops be protected from dying to collateral damage at all (especially the last one), and shouldn't armies protect some pops from dying to collateral damage?

I mostly agree. The thing is that just reducing collateral damage from armies as the devs propose may not be the best solution. I really like collateral damage as it is - it makes invasions feel much more impactful. Reducing it may actually mean reverting to the state prior patch 3.8. I think that most of the design decisions in this patch are good in general, though the implementation was not ideal and they need tweaking, not reverting back.

The problem with planet's depopulation can really be solved by applying a minimum amount of pops that should remain regardless of collateral damage (based on capital tier prefferably) + reducinig the chance of pops working soldier jobs dying from collateral damage. This is to avoid situations when you win with more armies remaining than pops producing them, which may be very weird in edge cases.

 

[Calvax]

I mostly agree. The thing is that just reducing collateral damage from armies as the devs propose may not be the best solution. I really like collateral damage as it is - it makes invasions feel much more impactful. Reducing it may actually mean reverting to the state prior patch 3.8. I think that most of the design decisions in this patch are good in general, though the implementation was not ideal and they need tweaking, not reverting back.

The problem with planet's depopulation can really be solved by applying a minimum amount of pops that should remain regardless of collateral damage (based on capital tier prefferably) + reducinig the chance of pops working soldier jobs dying from collateral damage. This is to avoid situations when you win with more armies remaining than pops producing them, which may be very weird in edge cases.

Another option could be to make the chance of pops dying vary based on the number of pops. The less pops the less likely they are to die from collateral damage, representing a sparse population.

 

[Starfury]

Big +1 here. Raiding definitely needs to be fixed, but it should retain its role.

Do you happen to have any suggestion on how exactly Raiding could be fixed without slowing it down dramatically?

Keep in mind, the raiding bombardment stance pretty much amounts to a total war CB for one side only.
If you've got any undefended planet, I can start stealing your pops. The best you can do is to prevent me from stealing even more. And if we're not direct neighbors, good luck trying to claim one of my planets to actually get something back.

This perk is competing for a perk slot with Ecumenpolis and dyson spheres and things that give major permanent benefits just by picking them. Meanwhile you have this perk which takes an absolutely staggering amount of work to get even a tiny amount of return for investment on, and which is just objectively inferior to building armies and taking the planet or even just bombarding the armies to death now

Raiding bombardment competes with one Ascencion Perk: Colossus Project. These are the two things that allow you direct growth without requiring influence. Total war is faster, raiding is safer.

 

[Starfury]

Another option could be to make the chance of pops dying vary based on the number of pops. The less pops the less likely they are to die from collateral damage, representing a sparse population.

That's in the game. Fewer pops and bigger planets both reduce bombardment damage.

This effect is scaled based on the number of pops/buildings and planet’s size, where highly populated small planets will suffer greater losses compared to large sparsely populated planets.

 

[Eswahrt]

That's in the game. Fewer pops and bigger planets both reduce bombardment damage.

The question may be in the exact numbers and what affects/limits them

 

[Lorenerd11]

I mostly agree. The thing is that just reducing collateral damage from armies as the devs propose may not be the best solution. I really like collateral damage as it is - it makes invasions feel much more impactful. Reducing it may actually mean reverting to the state prior patch 3.8. I think that most of the design decisions in this patch are good in general, though the implementation was not ideal and they need tweaking, not reverting back.

The problem with planet's depopulation can really be solved by applying a minimum amount of pops that should remain regardless of collateral damage (based on capital tier prefferably) + reducinig the chance of pops working soldier jobs dying from collateral damage. This is to avoid situations when you win with more armies remaining than pops producing them, which may be very weird in edge cases.

I feel the current collateral damage values may be a bit too much. It should be higher than it was before, but probably not as high as it is now.

Also, each army should fully protect at least 1 pop from collateral damage, especially the pops in Soldier jobs.

 

[zZander56]

Do you happen to have any suggestion on how exactly Raiding could be fixed without slowing it down dramatically?

Revert its speed back to what it was prepatch. What we have now is closer to a bug than anything else.

 

[zZander56]

Maybe we can take a look at raiding wargoals while we're on the topic?

 

[DeanTheDull]

A few highlights include changes relating to ground combat collateral damage and bombardment (specifically Raiding Bombardment).

We’re reducing the amount of collateral damage ground units deal, as many invasions were destroying the colonies before the battle completed.

The base rate at which Raiding bombardment steals pops will be dramatically reduced. Each army present on a planet will also protect 3 pops from being vulnerable to Raiding bombardment. (Raiding bombardment is always unable to steal the last pop of a colony, so on a colony with three defending armies the last ten pops would be safe from raiding.)

Is the intended interplay between these supposed to be that you invade, but retreat before winning ground battles for a planet? Or will raiding be allowed against occupied planets?

Because iirc, you can't abduct pops from a planet you've already occupied by ground, which means you can't actually win ground battles to remove the defending army pops.



Per previous notes, Planetary Capital buildings will spawn 0/4/8/16 defensive armies for free based on the tier of the building.
This doesn't seem to change encompass the defense armies from jobs provided by the colonist/enforcers from the capital building, which are 2/2/4/6
Further, enforcer buildings are 2/5 enforcers, or 6/15 pops protected

The means the defense armies per tier are:
0-2/4-6/8-12/16-22

Which means the pops protected per capital tier are
0-6 pops / 12-18 pops / 24-36 pops / 48-66 pops

When the pop range of each capital tier are-
1-9 pops / 10-24 / 25-49 / 50+


Assuming defense armies, uh, defend against raiding, then with 0 investment beyond the capital itself, every tier gets full abduction protection up to the capital's pre-requisite pop tier, and with guaranteed enforcer jobs gets about halfway to the next capital tier. With an enforcer building, you are guaranteed enough protection to tier 3 capitals, and a tier 2 enforcer building up to tier 4.


As structured, the only way to meaningfully raid as an attacker is to destroy the innate defense (and other) armies first, primarily by ground invasion. You'd want/need to invade and withdraw before occupying the planet, so that it's defense armies are down, but the bombardment can abduct pops. If you do it too late, you'd occupy the planet, and iirc you can't bombard a planet you yourself are occupying.