Stellaris Dev Diary #350 - Storms and their Aftermath

[Kaktusbuderkäse]

Will there be corporate/overlord holdings for storm attraction/repulsion?

 

[Ajacoba]

More defense army health is hilarious as an aftereffect, lol


Just watch Cardia intentionally be hit by a storm to maximize the defenses XD

 

[Halfedead_Harry]

Will there be any new ways to deal with devastation? It would be nice to have some active means to reduce it, instead of simply waiting till it goes away.

 

[Panzerslothen]

Will there be any new ways to deal with devastation? It would be nice to have some active means to reduce it, instead of simply waiting till it goes away.

Directly related to this, I've been thinking for a whole that the current Devestation recovery speed is very slow, is universal, and cannot be sped up by any means.

Devs, it would be great if a new modifier could be added to increase (and also potentially decrease) the speed at which Devestation is repaired. Then this could be enacted in the form of a Decision or an Edict, maybe in return for some kind of Minerals upkeep or similar. Perhaps certain Civics could also have a faster recovery rate.

 

[Harkinian's Dinner]

I am a bit worried that the storms will be too localized and be moving too quickly to make for good strategic opportunities. The current galaxy-wide storm is obviously very impactful and can greatly reward players for taking advantage of its shield-nullifying effects in a war. Conversely, a player can one-up the player who removed all their shields by fighting said player in a non-storm system using anti-armor weapons and full shields. It was an interesting dynamic.

With the new storms, I am not sure it will be worth changing your ship designs. They seem like the impact is mostly economic rather than in war strategy, and don't involve much meaningful player interaction. You'll have to be very lucky for a storm to hit just right against your rival that you can make good use of it in war. And by the endgame when you seemingly have more control over where storms move, everyone will have those passive techs that reduce the impact of the storms on ships anyway.

 

[rubert]

Can I create a super storm and send it to my rival's home world?

 

[Foxosaur]

I like this, should mean you can significantly hamper the output of some hyper specialised world. prior to a war, if it lands well enough anyway. Guessing that isn't guaranteed though? Maybe guaranteed to at least roughly hit a target?

 

[qwary]

Will Ai be able to manipulate storms? I can't imagine that it would be able to time it right to actualy use it for war. But will it try to funnel harmful storms towards theyr neighbours, or at least try to repel them away from themselfs?

 

[Rafss]

Will Spionage get a Storm Beacon operation?

Do Storms follow Hyperlanes?
If a Galaxy shape has a massive visual gap between two arms without hyperlanes, can a storms jump across just because it wants to go on that direction?

 

[goldennick94]

Curious to know if there will be anything we can put on starbases to affect storm repulsion and attraction? Kind of tempted to make a "lightning rod" starbase around a border system.

 

[Drullo321]

I'm not entirely convinced how the presented mechanics, especially the negative effects and the effort to counter them, enhances the gameplay. Yes, it adds more diversity, nice visuals, etc, but other then that it only adds negative or random effects on planets/system everyone has to deal with. Those effects certainly can kill a planet economy or even an otherwise normal playthrough completely (wasting hours...) or have to be dealt with by extensive buildings, building slots, technologies to just break even.

Aside from the economy, those thing seem just to be tedious, random and certainly lead to frustration.

I own all the DLC, and there are better and worse for sure. And even those I consider worse in term of gameplay have some content which enhanced the game (e.g. Nemesis with espionage (tedious, not so fun) <-> other content (enrichened gameplay)).

Maybe someone can enlighten me how those storms are a fun gameplay element a player wants to deal with?

 

[henners_]

So my preferred play style is extremely wide, thanks to Eager Explores and the Quantum Catapult origin. I might spend the first 200 years connecting the rest of my empire together after I have forward settled everything possible.
Now as I rely on impregnable Starbases to win my initial wars, you can imagine my horror when I see a storm type that nullifies closed boarders and ruins my plans for my grand empire.
Will there be an option in the game settings to chose which storms are spawned in the game, or is my best hope to minimize the amount of early game storms?

 

[Ajacoba]

I'm not entirely convinced how the presented mechanics, especially the negative effects and the effort to counter them, enhances the gameplay. Yes, it adds more diversity, nice visuals, etc, but other then that it only adds negative or random effects on planets/system everyone has to deal with. Those effects certainly can kill a planet economy or even an otherwise normal playthrough completely (wasting hours...) or have to be dealt with by extensive buildings, building slots, technologies to just break even.

Aside from the economy, those thing seem just to be tedious, random and certainly lead to frustration.

I own all the DLC, and there are better and worse for sure. And even those I consider worse in term of gameplay have some content which enhanced the game (e.g. Nemesis with espionage (tedious, not so fun) <-> other content (enrichened gameplay)).

Maybe someone can enlighten me how those storms are a fun gameplay element a player wants to deal with?

Mid game is boring af and lacks stuff to do

The storms will either add something entertaining and challenging by temporarily weakening you or they will add insane amounts of fun when your rival gets stormed on and reveals a weakness

Being storm demons hiding cloaked ships within the storm's cloaking buff sounds also great - everyone gets cloaking eventually, but not everyone has good enough cloaking for war, so getting a cloaking storm would allow even weak cloaking fields to be viable


Also we already have storms in the game - except they don't really do anything - the new ones will at least give you a reason to dislike them and will potentially give you many reasons to like them

Worst case you easily repel or tank a storm by building one or two buildings and just arrive at the current point of ignoring the big space storm again


Best case we win a lot, worst case we lose nothing

 

[guiskj]

I'm not initially too keen on the storm buildings giving you as many researchers as a lab. You always want more researchers, so this won't actually feel like I am making a tough choice of building the storm buildings OR using that building slot for long term benefit. I kind am getting both at once, a lab and a useful protection building.

 

[FleetingRain]

I don't get how increased gravitational pulls increases Enforcer and Entertainer output.

 

[oreopirate]

I don't get how increased gravitational pulls increase Enforcer and Entertainer output.

I'd presume because people aren't going outside, makes enforcement easier and more entertainer work.
Like virus shutdowns, and how we all watched Tiger King, which none of us would have watched if we could go outside.

 

[FiddleSticks96]

The entertainers help you forget the gravity of the situation.

I don't get how increased gravitational pulls increase Enforcer and Entertainer output.

 

[Ajacoba]

I'd presume because people aren't going outside, makes enforcement easier and more entertainer work.

New Season of "Tatort" and "Der Bergdoktor"
LETS GO!!! XD

 

[Critical Ethics]

Something that came up in another forum: it would be neat if there were "badlands" on the map. Basically nebulae but with different effects, possibly with slightly fluctuating borders. I was hoping that would be part of this expansion but hey, maybe some other time!

 

[Levgar]

Vluurrr seeeeeks......