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Stellaris Dev Diary #35 - QA in Space

Hello everyone!

Today’s DD will bring a little light on QA work, and give a glimpse of odd and interesting bugs the team struggled with throughout the development of Stellaris. My name is Chandika, and I work as Embedded QA on Stellaris, alongside with Leo Larsson and Obidobi (partially). We are part of the Development Team, but we also have Central QA working with us. They are not assigned for any project for good, as they are working with all our titles.


For a deeper and detailed explanation on how Quality Assurance department works in Paradox Development Studios please check this Dev Diary written by Distantaziq, Embedded QA on Hearts of Iron IV.


Although QA job is not just reporting bugs and issues we find, this is what we are known for, bringing programmers to tears and despair. Also, it is the most visible part of our work, as you can see below.



The beginning

Very first bug ever that has been reported on Stellaris was, you could say, pretty important. Courtesy of MrNibbles, who found out that there was no Exit or Quit Game button present in game at all. Perhaps it was by design? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

NoExitGameOption_01 (1).jpg

Jormungandur: "We didn't see a need for the player to be able to stop playing"



Migrating hair, clothes and other things

Throughout the life of Stellaris, many aliens seemed to have their own will to change looks. Some would say it’s the hottest spring/summer 2016 of the stellar fashion, and as a matter of fact, it wouldn’t be that far from true.
2016_02_17_5.jpg
pasted image 3.png



This Reptilian was called Fabalien in our QA team. We even made our own Emoji in the chat we’re using at work. It’s fabulous!
pasted image 3.png




Scientists sometimes would change their clothes, depending on which alien empire they would encounter.
5.png
6.png



Socially awkward Molluscoid would creep through the window while having a conversation with you. Don’t make eye contact!
7.jpg



Naming your empire

Let’s say you wanted to name your empire with one letter. It would be a pity if it wasn’t visible on the map, right?
8paint.jpg



I mean, one letter can be easily missed in the vast Galaxy full of wonders.
9pai.jpg


You gotta make sure other empires treat you seriously, Q.
10pai.jpg




Space whales preparing for war

Purely a graphical bug where Space Critters, Whales and Amoebas decided to look a bit more intimidating than usual.
11.jpg




Instant rebellions

Look at this kaleidoscopic galaxy! It was a result of instant rebellions that AI could not handle.
13pai.jpg




Honorable Mentions:

Tough love of planets and their satellites.
14pai.jpg



Some Space Amoeba corpses would display in Galaxy View. And they are huge.
15pai.jpg




The epilogue

Of course, being a QA is not playing games all day and occasionally reporting something that made your playthrough unpleasant. We are most famous for the ridiculous screenshots we capture, but it’s actually just a small part of our job. Our responsibilities include (but are not limited to): analysing risks of the project, keeping track of our internal database of issues, which also means regression (verifying if the issues previously reported were fixed), and giving continuous feedback on the project (what works well, and what should be changed). We are doing a number of different tests that would narrow the issues down, check if all the features are in and working etc. We have scheduled multiplayer tests twice a week, as well as exploratory testing that would help us focus on long game.


All things considered, there is never enough testing for the project, especially games like Stellaris, where anything is possible. That’s why I would like to thank our dear betas for helping us out a lot and doing all sorts of testing for Stellaris. Without you it wouldn’t be the same! :)
 

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QA is'nt a most actual discussion topic.

It seems to me that a much more important is absence of the mechanisms for suppressing/eliminating of discontent in the ingame democracies.
 
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Is it wrong that I want this to be in the base game?

Look at this kaleidoscopic galaxy! It was a result of instant rebellions that AI could not handle.
index.php
"Some kind of celestial event. No — no words. No words to describe it. Poetry! They should have sent a poet. So beautiful. So beautiful... I had no idea."
-Dr. Ellie Arroway
 
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Really interesting stories and funny screenshots.

But when I see this: I wanna have that thick black outlines around empires and the hexagon patterns of the Q Screenshot!
:D

This seems to make the map much more readable.

Yeah why was it removed ? This map is so much clearer... And the hexagons didn't look bad.
yESM3mrwwKZ1ds1Z-sn_4AcxtqcIHkNUABTXJI88QMUMsq6XvRmJO9TLhrWeOqBmIFN_dOKewnqfzqPk6h2qQQQbS_W5Dk031EVg3g-Ph4a7Ik7_SnYEAJzEBx5atBxGTgOmcdCS
 
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Some Space Amoeba corpses would display in Galaxy View. And they are huge.

@Chandika This actually still happens! (at least in 1.0.3)
020_galaxy_war.png


For ship debris, weapon VFX etc... if you pause in system view mid-battle, then go to the galaxy map and pan around you'll see your "battle" frozen in time across the galaxy.
281990_20160527213238_1.png 281990_20160530001709_1.png 281990_20160530005504_1.png
 
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Space whales preparing for war

Purely a graphical bug where Space Critters, Whales and Amoebas decided to look a bit more intimidating than usual.
View attachment 183992



Some Space Amoeba corpses would display in Galaxy View. And they are huge.
View attachment 184001



I think those two bugs are still somewhat alive

The Spacecritter can still display their weapon attachments in the unit view if they are player owned - which can only happen if a primitve AI somehow gains control of some space critter, is then uplifted, doesn't delete their space critter while being a vassal and then is finally integrated by the player.
Also of that happens with a space amoeba it will start acting autonomously as soon as it doesn't have any player movement orders to obey. You'll still get aggro if it runs in Fallen Emoire space, tho'.

The 'corpse can be displayed on the galaxy' bug has also happened with spaceports for me in 1.0.3 (Not in the beta).
 
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QA isnt a most actual discussion topic.

Actually, QA is very much the subject of this topic as stapled in the title, so I'll use this unique opportunity to share some of my experience as a QA Engineer.

In most software companies, testing is done before the product is released, in order to deliver on promises and not alienate new buyers. I know, due to the high number of disagreements to my last post, that this may come as a shock to you, but most software companies have something that is called a "Closed beta" stage before release, where, I quote the totally antique and disrespectful Wikipedia, "the software is feature complete but likely to contain a number of known or unknown bugs".

The more you know...
 
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Here I am, wondering why Stellaris released a dev diary on the weekend. Then I remember, "Oh! It's not the weekend, it's just a national holiday." :rolleyes:
 
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Hello everyone!

Today’s DD will bring a little light on QA work, and give a glimpse of odd and interesting bugs the team struggled with throughout the development of Stellaris. My name is Chandika, and I work as Embedded QA on Stellaris, alongside with Leo Larsson and Obidobi (partially). We are part of the Development Team, but we also have Central QA working with us. They are not assigned for any project for good, as they are working with all our titles.


For a deeper and detailed explanation on how Quality Assurance department works in Paradox Development Studios please check this Dev Diary written by Distantaziq, Embedded QA on Hearts of Iron IV.


Although QA job is not just reporting bugs and issues we find, this is what we are known for, bringing programmers to tears and despair. Also, it is the most visible part of our work, as you can see below.



The beginning

Very first bug ever that has been reported on Stellaris was, you could say, pretty important. Courtesy of MrNibbles, who found out that there was no Exit or Quit Game button present in game at all. Perhaps it was by design? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

View attachment 183985
Jormungandur: "We didn't see a need for the player to be able to stop playing"



Migrating hair, clothes and other things

Throughout the life of Stellaris, many aliens seemed to have their own will to change looks. Some would say it’s the hottest spring/summer 2016 of the stellar fashion, and as a matter of fact, it wouldn’t be that far from true.
View attachment 183986 View attachment 183987


This Reptilian was called Fabalien in our QA team. We even made our own Emoji in the chat we’re using at work. It’s fabulous!
View attachment 183987



Scientists sometimes would change their clothes, depending on which alien empire they would encounter.
View attachment 183989 View attachment 183990


Socially awkward Molluscoid would creep through the window while having a conversation with you. Don’t make eye contact!
View attachment 183991


Naming your empire

Let’s say you wanted to name your empire with one letter. It would be a pity if it wasn’t visible on the map, right?
View attachment 183995


I mean, one letter can be easily missed in the vast Galaxy full of wonders.
View attachment 183997

You gotta make sure other empires treat you seriously, Q.
View attachment 183998



Space whales preparing for war

Purely a graphical bug where Space Critters, Whales and Amoebas decided to look a bit more intimidating than usual.
View attachment 183992



Instant rebellions

Look at this kaleidoscopic galaxy! It was a result of instant rebellions that AI could not handle.
View attachment 183999



Honorable Mentions:

Tough love of planets and their satellites.
View attachment 184000


Some Space Amoeba corpses would display in Galaxy View. And they are huge.
View attachment 184001



The epilogue

Of course, being a QA is not playing games all day and occasionally reporting something that made your playthrough unpleasant. We are most famous for the ridiculous screenshots we capture, but it’s actually just a small part of our job. Our responsibilities include (but are not limited to): analysing risks of the project, keeping track of our internal database of issues, which also means regression (verifying if the issues previously reported were fixed), and giving continuous feedback on the project (what works well, and what should be changed). We are doing a number of different tests that would narrow the issues down, check if all the features are in and working etc. We have scheduled multiplayer tests twice a week, as well as exploratory testing that would help us focus on long game.


All things considered, there is never enough testing for the project, especially games like Stellaris, where anything is possible. That’s why I would like to thank our dear betas for helping us out a lot and doing all sorts of testing for Stellaris. Without you it wouldn’t be the same! :)
That reptilian brown hair is still present on live, just an fyi.
 
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