Stellaris Dev Diary #329 - Technology Beta Wrapup

[Des Cuddlebat]

"Full unity builds" should not be viable. Your suggestion, and also the direction the game has been going with separating tech and unity, makes the game worse.

The interplay between different systems and complex requirement gateways for features is one of the most interesting and well-designed parts of the game. It rewards players who play the game holistically - which is much more challenging - rather than those who minmax a laser focus on just one area and simplify the game for themselves, something which tends to kill RTS games (everyone doing the same beelined build orders).

Moreover, this is a SCIENCE fiction game. Technology should always be at the core of the game. Unity didn't even exist when the game released.

I've been a fan of the ascension unity rush build ever since it was possible, and then doubly so in the short period where Champions of the Empire tied it together with high level leaders who in turn had a powerful synergy with quality worlds over world quantity

But ultimately, fleet and repeatables are the indefinitely scaling vectors that directly translate to power, and the fun to me of unity builds is to tackle these same things from a different angle - through a system which rewards carefully measured expansion by setting you up to grow even faster and overtake where you would've been

The game hasn't been going the direction of separating tech and unity, but rather fleshing out the two resources, their behavior, themes, and the interactions between them - since tech is indefinitely scaling it makes sense to get rid of a straight up repeatable unity modifier for example as that just stands to damage the delicate system that unity is, but unity progress and planetary ascensions absolutely benefit from the right techs in often genuinely interesting ways (anti-gravity engineering for ecus or mega-engineering for rings, which can house heaps of pops making ascensions more efficient as well as offering powerful designations, ascension theory for obvious reasons, church/monument upgrades, third civic can be huge for empire size savings, and so on) while the ascensions and unity progress feed right back into techs (By lowering your empire size and improving research designations, through edicts and ambitions - both in turn aided by managing your empire size too, and tradition and AP choices can also improve your techs)

I agree with keeping ascension theory tied to technology, whichever tier is ideal for that, but the assessment of the game's direction is just wrong

 

[Nerisande]

"Full unity builds" should not be viable.

"Full alloy builds" and "full science builds" should not be viable in that case.

The interplay between different systems and complex requirement gateways for features is one of the most interesting and well-designed parts of the game.

You have not so much choices, you either go alloys or go science. Unity is just a supplementary resource, the same as any other resource except science and alloys. You may lose effectiveness not only when your unity income is too low, but also when your income is too high. And when it comes to alloys or science - more is always better.

It rewards players who play the game holistically - which is much more challenging - rather than those who minmax a laser focus on just one area

The game rewards two playstyles, consisting of focusing on alloys or on science. And making the third resource being viable to maximize with all your economy strength would not make the game worse. The first tech beta (and the second with some settings) was an interesting experience, when you were discouraged from focusing on science because it was too expensive and gave not so much snowball potential. But on other side the beta was extremely tedious because too much of the game content is locked by techs - you would rather conquer the galaxy three times than reach the end of research tree. That is why the second beta on its default settings is close to pre-beta patch and the devs will "experiment with technology spread and similar effects sometime in the future".

Moreover, this is a SCIENCE fiction game. Technology should always be at the core of the game

A technology obtained through agenda, espionage, events, dig sites and so on, is still a technology.

 

[Vedic2024]

I think I unfortunately missed my chance to fill out the feedback form so I'm just going to add a few things here.

For context, I played a default Rostuvaatal Knights of the Toxic God (my favourite origin) playthrough and a Void Hive Void Dweller Terravore playthrough. Settings were Admiral,3x Crisis, all Crises, for both with Knights being default tech and Terravore being low tech slider.

The tech costs felt much better but Special Projects need to be looked at (specifically Cybernetic and probably Synthetic). While doing a Cybernetic run to see the effects on Ascension my pop growth was outscaling my Flesh is Weak growth so my time to complete went up rather than down each month. I just retooled more pops into research but a new player would be confused by that.

Pursuing the project put me far behind on engineering research. An Ascension path is a fun and interesting part of play buy, if it takes 30 years to activate, feels more like a punishment than a benefit. Perhaps cap Ascension Special Project costs to when it's activated so they can't lose progress while you're actively working on it?

With the RNG that meant I didn't get battleships until 2430 or so. I also ended up keeping multiple perks unfilled since RNG wasn't supporting my build. While lack of planning is a completely normal mistake in gameplay having your build very delayed due to RNG isn't fun. A possible solution could be decoupling tech requisites (eg Star Fortress) from Ascension perks and letting perks give an agenda similar to Ascension perks that let you work on your tech (eg. Eternal Vigilance only gives the full effect once you have Star Fortess but you can get an agenda from picking it beforehand that gives you +25% progress on the next level of Starbase progression until you have Star Fortress).

To be clear, I'm not suggesting removing items such as 'must have picked 2 AP first' or 'must have built a Wonder'; my suggestion above is only for technology requisites. The terraforming ones are already covered under Adaptability but Eternal Vigilance, etc doesn't have anything similar.

An alternate idea to consider is giving Unyielding an agenda for starbases and Supremacy one for ships. However, perks such as Galactic Force Projection aren't picked, well, at all but giving it an agenda for ships would buff it.

Another alternate idea to avoid the unfulfilling part of leaving Ascension perks unpicked for long stretches of gameplay would be buffing the lower tier Ascension perks.

I loved how Knights of the Toxic God choices were changed so please keep that. I mourn the loss of Breakthrough techs but a large part of that is because Breakthrough techs limited RNG and made it easier to get the one tech you wanted for an Ascension perk. The suggestions I mentioned above would make it so builds were less limited by RNG.

I liked the beta; it was fun which is the most important thing for a game. The tech costs did not feel oppressive like the first beta but had an impact. The items above need tweaking in my opinion but it was a good beta overall.

 

[RabbaDooDabba]

Oh, interesting changes.
But while we are on the topic of special planets: Could you take a pass at how the Thrall World tech is drawn, at times it feels even rarer than Psionic Theory.

 

[King Harkinian]

"Full alloy builds" and "full science builds" should not be viable in that case.

No, they should not. Which is why technology should also be locked behind unity. Which used to be the case more than it is now. There was a time where all Megastructures were locked behind Ascension Perks, and you needed a different one for each structure. Interlocking requirements that force you to make use of all the game's systems rather than completely ignoring some of them are, like I said, one of the best aspects of Stellaris, and that design has been weakened over time for years now with stuff like the changes to ascension paths. Everything is getting progressively dumbed down so everyone can rush to do their favourite "build" instead of properly playing the game.

This also extends to the gradual removal of RNG, another aspect of the game that hampered the degenerate "builds" metaplay in favor of having to adapt and think on the spot. Just look at an above poster complaining about not getting the perfect RNG for his ascension path "build" EVEN though the system has been dumbed down by giving you access to the techs via agendas. These people are never happy until they can play the game following a linear build order every time, ruining everything that makes Stellaris unique. Working with what you got and choosing the ascension path based on the circumstances rather than based on a "build" plan you had from the start of the game- that's immersion, that's sci-fi.

Over time as a game gets older, more and more of the voices the devs hear tend to be hardcore flowcharters who just want everything to be as frictionless as possible so they can do their flowchart over and over as easily as possible. When the devs listen, it's a risk that the soul and dynamism is sucked out of the game in the name of "streamlining". It's what ruined the game design of companies like Blizzard. I don't want it to happen to Stellaris so I'm always arguing against it as much as I can.

 

[Serenity84]

Now we need the opposite with Penal Colonies where putting them on harsher, less habitable planets makes them more effective

 

[Thiend]

One new change we’ll be making based on some of the data we’ve collected is that we’re moving Ascension Theory to Tier 4 from Tier 5, but it will only be available to empires that have completed at least six tradition trees. As Unity and Research are intended to be “opposing” resources to a degree, we did not want the capstone of Ascension based gameplay to be so strongly tied to the later game tech tree.

Old man... stops yelling at cloud!?

This is really great. Unity-focused empires are no longer forced to focus tech at least as hard to acquire Ascension Theory, tech focused empires no longer incidentally get unity's most significant payoff first. Very very nice.

 

[GOLANX]

If we talk about Ascension Theory, is it a good idea to add an alternative way of obtaining Ascension Theory through agenda after finishing all traditions? The reason is making full-unity builds more viable by allowing them to bypass tech-gate like it is done with ascension paths.
And in general I think that the main focus of patch about technology must be re-thinking of some tech-gates, which are too common in Stellaris.

Mega-engineering too, let empires Pick up Master builders after T3 and 3 other APs and that gives an agenda to give Mega Engineering. After Unlocking The tech you can get another Agenda to pick up a Megastructure (generally limited)

There are too many AND gates in Tech that would be better served as OR gates.

 

[cryptkeeper]

Just the Resort World, for now.

*prays* Holy worlds and Penal colonies get a pass at some point. I want to recruit sardukar(Fanatic harden prisoner soldiers), from a inhospitable hell planet.
I also think thrall worlds could use a bit more especially in the building options, though I do love their resource world focus.

That's a fun idea; I'll see if I can get that working.

Space casinos!!

 

[Vedic2024]

No, they should not. Which is why technology should also be locked behind unity. Which used to be the case more than it is now. There was a time where all Megastructures were locked behind Ascension Perks, and you needed a different one for each structure. Interlocking requirements that force you to make use of all the game's systems rather than completely ignoring some of them are, like I said, one of the best aspects of Stellaris, and that design has been weakened over time for years now with stuff like the changes to ascension paths. Everything is getting progressively dumbed down so everyone can rush to do their favourite "build" instead of properly playing the game.

This also extends to the gradual removal of RNG, another aspect of the game that hampered the degenerate "builds" metaplay in favor of having to adapt and think on the spot. Just look at an above poster complaining about not getting the perfect RNG for his ascension path "build" EVEN though the system has been dumbed down by giving you access to the techs via agendas. These people are never happy until they can play the game following a linear build order every time, ruining everything that makes Stellaris unique. Working with what you got and choosing the ascension path based on the circumstances rather than based on a "build" plan you had from the start of the game- that's immersion, that's sci-fi.

Over time as a game gets older, more and more of the voices the devs hear tend to be hardcore flowcharters who just want everything to be as frictionless as possible so they can do their flowchart over and over as easily as possible. When the devs listen, it's a risk that the soul and dynamism is sucked out of the game in the name of "streamlining". It's what ruined the game design of companies like Blizzard. I don't want it to happen to Stellaris so I'm always arguing against it as much as I can.

If you're referring to me you're 100% mistaken. I play for story and RP, not mechanical benefits. However, if I want a small inward perfection Empire that stays out of galactic affairs but I can't do that since even though I have a ton of unity I can't get what I need to make my idea happen because of tech RNG it's frustrating.

It's not streamlining when I pick less effective and efficient choices to RP. However, with the higher tech costs it can affect my decision to RP by tying what I need to tech requisites. It forces additional tech research when I'd rather have priests for example. In production it didn't matter since I'd get all techs in a timely matter.

If your assumptions is that it only affects min-maxers that's a completely misguided assumption

 

[BrokenSky]

you can no longer declare a tomb or relic world a vacation paradise.

So I get why a Tomb World is unlikely to be anyone's #1 vacation spot (except maybe for Memorialists?), but why not a relic world?

Plenty of places have Archeology and Ancient Ruins as a primary Tourist attraction - Several places in Egypt, Greece and Italy for example.

 

[Vedic2024]

So I get why a Tomb World is unlikely to be anyone's #1 vacation spot (except maybe for Memorialists?), but why not a relic world?

Plenty of places have Archeology and Ancient Ruins as a primary Tourist attraction - Several places in Egypt, Greece and Italy for example.

Memorialists and maybe post apocalyptic survivor origin? If your species starts with tomb world preference then why wouldn't they want to vacation in the environment they prefer? Even in real life, Chernobyl still gets tourists.

 

[ashbery76]

Dunno, some might want to go visit and have fun on their old enemies planet they exterminated.

 

[Wise Strategist]

Our general philosophy is that it is better to permit more customization of your play experience than less

Then how about adding the ability for players to save and/or export galaxies for later play as static maps?

 

[Vedic2024]

Then how adding the ability for players to save and/or export galaxies for later play as static maps?

I like that idea. One of the items I had fun with in Civ was saving a map right at game start and replaying it to see how it could have gone.

I can't do that with Iron Man mode obviously but if I really like a map I'd like to play it again.

 

[Thiend]

Dunno, some might want to go visit and have fun on their old enemies planet they exterminated.

Allow tombworlds for memorialists... and any empire capable of creating tombworlds.

Relic worlds should just be allowed, some of the largest tourist locations in the world are effectively what a relic world is.

 

[Gabarius]

Very cool.
Is there any consideration for re-allowing for the removal of the cyborg train in species modification, in the next update cycle?

 

[Zoomy]

As funny as it was (and we did it all the time), you can no longer declare a tomb or relic world a vacation paradise.

Will there be exceptions for Post Apocalyptic/Relentless Industrialist/Radiotrophic empires, since their idea of a nice holiday spot is probably a bit different to everyone else? Or Remnants for Relic World Resorts?

 

[King Harkinian]

Mega-engineering too, let empires Pick up Master builders after T3 and 3 other APs and that gives an agenda to give Mega Engineering. After Unlocking The tech you can get another Agenda to pick up a Megastructure (generally limited)

There are too many AND gates in Tech that would be better served as OR gates.

This used to be how it worked before the trend towards removing interconnections between tech and unity started. Master Builders gave you Mega-Engineering as a research option.

 

[Larva]

I think you should definitely consider splitting 1 job title there into two separate ones (for specs and for workers). Like any resort - having specialists like chefs, marketing teams, designers, troupe leads AND having a lot of very simple jobs. Also would really make sense thematically for nerve-stapled/servile folks - they cannot work on your current resorts - which kinda doesn't make sense (like, any sensual-pleasure resort will gladly have tons of living sex toys, and some martial empire can use them as fodder for gladiatorial battles and what not). Amenities can be generated by workers in this case and trade value by specs