Stellaris Dev Diary #364 - Sights Unseen

[Miguelinileugim]

Small note here but I'd like pops to react to me modifying them. I can literally nerve staple them and they don't react. I would like modification to happen over time like assimilation.

 

[Calvax]

Scenarios
“Scenarios” are another proposal that I’ve seen a number of times over the years - would it be interesting to have scripted game modes with custom rules, and events already in motion?

I think this would be cool providing there's still a lot of flexibility and freedom with how the game goes.

A scenario I've often wanted to play is one in which the galaxy is all one race, with the lore being that some ancient galactic empire fell and now you're all rebuilding. So you can see if you can reunify your race peacefully, diplomatically, or go with a galaxy of different nations with different destinies.

 

[Lude_has_come]

I feel like different sub ascension paths would be cool, like in the stellaris evolved mod. Like for bio ascension differenciate between the Tyranid and the Primarch routes, and for the psyonic ascension separate the jedi route from the warp embracer (heretic) route. Maybe have event chains during ascension to steer you in different directions. Or have mutually exclusive branches of a tradition tree (like eu4 branching missions).

 

[Shootnik01]

Still waiting for technocracy (both as a government feat and a game style) for megacorps. I feel like technology traders or ruthless corporate scientists will make materialist megacorps a lot more fun to play both from mechanical and roleplay perspectives!

 

[Praetor Metroo]

English is not my native language, but I decided to use a translator to write a comment. So I apologise in advance for any mistakes.
I like almost all the ideas from this diary, but have a couple of thoughts on some of the issues.

Spiritualist factions
Instead of simple spiritualist factions, you can introduce a new mechanic that many people are waiting for - religion. It could be released in one DLC with psionic ascension. I don't have an idea how to specifically implement religion mechanics in the game, but I have some ideas about creating new religions in the empire editor and an empire origin with unique religion interaction mechanics and a unique psionic ascension path (in short, a ‘living gods’ origin, partially inspired by Goa'uld from Stargate). I'll post more details in the Suggestions section of the forum.

Gestalt factions
I find this idea very questionable, gestalt empires should be very different from regular empires.

Internal politics and governments
In Stellaris, governments are not different at all in terms of gameplay, for example democracy or dictatorship are the same. I've recently played Crusader Kings 2 and Europa Universalis: Rome and I had some ideas about governments. For example, for Democracies and Oligarchies, we could make senate and voting mechanics. That is, the factions are organised as a senate (parliament) and vote on some issues (declaration of war, commercial treaties and the like) and some laws. In democracies, voting is similar to voting in the Galactic Community (factions have different voting weight, which depends on the number of seats in the Senate), and in oligarchies, voting is similar to voting in Federations (voting members of the ruler's council and an additional vote of the Senate, which counts as one). In Senate faction votes, you can legally campaign to vote in favour of your proposal, or you can illegally bribe. In Dictatorships and Empires there are no votes, except for some civic models (e.g. the civic model ‘Aristocratic Elites’ creates special factions of noble families who have estates in the ‘estates’ tab of your planets and can vote on laws in a limited way).

Civil Wars
Civil wars are a common theme in many works of space fiction. In addition to internal politics, the mechanics of civil wars should be introduced. The most important thing I would like is the ability to switch and play for the rebel empire (this is already realised in Machine Rebellion and in the origin ‘under one rule’). Also additionally such mechanics can be realised:
different types of civil wars - separatists, nationalist uprisings, egalitarian revolution in authoritarian empires, military coups, heritage wars in empires, religious uprisings and the like;
the mechanics of recognising independence for separatists( they cannot freely conduct diplomacy or join the Galactic Community);
a new government for the rebels - a provisional government.

 

[Shootnik01]

Also, the ability to use different assentions or hybrid assentions (say, you are weak psychic but gain some advancement in genetic modification) is not easy to balance, but in theory, will create huge diversity of civilizations, and will make players choose whethere they are going to focus on one path of assention, or try and combine them!

 

[Procyon19]

I hope you can choose your shroud patron in the new psyonic dlc.i always get the one that i dont want

 

[Gornova]

A scenario I've often wanted to play is one in which the galaxy is all one race, with the lore being that some ancient galactic empire fell and now you're all rebuilding. So you can see if you can reunify your race peacefully, diplomatically, or go with a galaxy of different nations with different destinies.

Something like a big "overlord" with many subjects ?

 

[ItThatAltersSanity]

A lot of potential provided players don't feel the base game is neglected because of scenario development. There are many benefits:

• Standardised examples for bug reproduction and tutorials
  • I believe it was the Tinkerpop graph database querying language that went out of its way to make stock-standard datasets you'd invoke to play around with. They were valuable for communication and learning.
• Marketing teasers for DLCs
  • A new player with no DLCs can try out a specific DLC's highlight features in a tiny sandbox
  • Veteran players can quickly experiment to learn the grizzly numeric details of new features without committing a whole campaign for this knowledge

Heck, make scenarios to beta test DLC features. Let the players chew on a scenario to test out a new feature and give feedback before release on whether the numbers feel right. Gauge the market's reaction early to gain insights like "these space storms are wimpy, crank them up" and "wait these space fauna scale how into endgame?"

 

[SarahGabriella]

When i think "bioships" i think "space jockey ship from the Alien franchise. As the space jockey/engineers were a biological species that seemed to merge and utilize bio mechanics.

 

[Zoomy]

Warfare and War Resolution
At some point in the future, I’d like to see us revisit war and war resolution, and enable more of the scenarios that occur in the “Stellaris Cinematic Universe” of our trailers. When the Gamma Aliens attacked the UNE colony of Europa VII, the Commonwealth of Man did not wait patiently for an invitation to war before summoning the Apocalypse. Humanity was threatened, and they acted. More fluid rules around joining and leaving wars are needed, and betrayal is not supported to my satisfaction. (Secret Fealty exists, but I don’t find it enough in its current state - other mechanics currently prevent them from seizing the chance for freedom at what would be the most opportune moments.)

This is the change I'd want to see bumped up to the top of the pile, the current system feels like someone half-implemented it and gave up to do something else. Everything else is in the "nice to have" column for me.

 

[MarkDey]

I hope you can choose your shroud patron in the new psyonic dlc.i always get the one that i dont want

You can do that now. Don't choose to Commune with the Ineffable, and then the next time you go into the Shroud, you can spend Zro and Energy to pick your Patron. Wiki link.

 

[Zoomy]

You can do that now. Don't choose to Commune with the Ineffable, and then the next time you go into the Shroud, you can spend Zro and Energy to pick your Patron. Wiki link.

That's...a poor implementation to say the least. When you want to pick a patron and step 1 in that process is "don't select the option that let's you pick a patron" someone's dropped the ball. Especially since AFAIK none of that is conveyed in-game and you need to go onto an external resource to find out.

 

[Panzerslothen]

This is a great Dev Diary. One of the best since the ones in the lead up to Machine Age. I'm thrilled to see you addressing the big issues, and aspiring towards things I would really like to see in the game. Very exciting!

 

[Critical Ethics]

Biological and Psionic Ascension
First things first, I strongly believe that remastering the remaining Ascension Paths is a top priority. The Machine Age dramatically improved Cybernetic and Synthetic Ascensions, and gave machine empires proper ascension choices, but left the others behind. Biological Ascension isn’t in a good state right now mechanically or as an overall experience.

The biggest issue with genetic ascension is how much hassle applying new templates is. If you go ahead with V3 style pops then you should be able to also allow for partial pops (1,500 milliPoPs working 1.5 jobs). If you can have partial pops you can have multiple pops groups on a planet growing and declining at once. If you can have multiple pop groups growing and declining at once you can remove the special project part of genetic engineering - if there's a better template that a particular pop group could be using the game could put the old pop group(s) into decline and spin up a new pop group using the new template with a growth bonus equal to the growth being taken from the other group(s), until the old pop group has declined way into nothing.

This means genetic ascension players would only have to do the fun part (making new templates) and the game would handle the tedious application bit automatically over time.

You could use the same system for machine templating snd ascension assimilation, but also proper pop group emigration (decline in a pop group on unsuitable planet A directly feeding into growth of a matching pop group on more suitable planet B) and possibly more subtle changes like faction and ethic shifts.

Psionic Ascension is better off as it is affected tangentially by most content releases, but is a bit too reliant on random events and luck. Both of these Ascension Paths will be revamped, though since they are very distinct from one another, I intend on having them focused on in two separate releases.

You can keep the shroud random while changing the style of randomness. There's a lot of ways to have random, variable results beyond heads get free stuff tails get wrecked. Check out TTRPGs that aren't D&D to see a whole host of alternate random result generation options.

Biological Ships
While rearing and mutating space fauna was added to Stellaris in the Grand Archive story pack, I feel that it’s not the same fantasy as true bioships. These are vessels that your people grow and fly around in, or that have more symbiotic relationships with their pilots. I think those systems would probably pair nicely alongside Biological Ascension.

Oh go yes please. I'd also love to see a "living ecosystem" hivemind civic or origin option, with organic buildings and organic ships. Escape the confines of standard_economy_module = {}!

Espionage
Espionage is a related system that isn’t satisfying its promise currently, as Mr. Cosmogone reminds me during every design meeting.

It’s difficult to keep track of spy networks, is generally of low impact, and has no real counterplay. But he’s got schemes.

I like the cut of Mr Cosmogone's jib.

Pirates and Crime
Space Piracy is a popular fantasy - we touched on it a bit with the Treasure Hunters origin in Grand Archive, but they could mesh well with the Nomads idea mentioned earlier or even a factional political expansion. Crime and Deviancy aren’t terribly engaging systems at the moment either, and might benefit from wider examination.

It would be good if pirates and crime were piratesandcrime, as opposed to being two completely unrelated systems with nothing to do with each other.

Species Packs
When it comes to species, I could see us examining what kinds of life could arise on molten or frozen worlds, much like we did with Toxoids. Like Toxoids, they’d likely need some restrictions on what they can do with those worlds (as they’re 10x more abundant than normal habitable worlds), but they’d be interesting to explore. Players often ask for gaseous or energy creatures - the first are already represented to an extent by the Dathnak and the latter by the Unbidden. I feel that energy beings may go too far into fantasy “elementals”, so I’d like to stay away from them if possible. Expanding the existing species phenotypes could also potentially be interesting - Plantoids II, for example.

Toxoids don't really live on toxic planets though. Detox terraforms terraforming candidate toxic worlds into basically regular habitable planets, similar to how regular terraforming can terraform some barren planets into regular habitable planets. We don't say that regular empires live on barren planets.

What I would like out of a Refrigeroids or Gasoids pack is to expand that barren/habitable comparison. Same as some goldilocks zone planets are barren and some are habitable there's a bunch of deep cold ice planets that are "habitable" and some that are not (working out to about one habitable ice planet for every 6 - 9 "regular" habitable planets). Even the "habitable" ones are not somewhere a human or blorg could ever think of living, and nobody who lives on a frozen planet would even consider attempting to live on one of our molten hellworlds. Well... unless they, say, wrapped that inconveniently bright star in metal first...

You could even add a bit of a glow up to toxoids with the same logic, with a "toxic" habitability category replacing a percentage of true toxic worlds, a smaller percentage of true toxic worlds gaining the terraformable traits, and Detox allowing you to terraform these into toxic habitable class worlds but also terraform toxic habitable class worlds into more "traditionally" habitable living space.

Same for gasoids - yeah there's a thousand gas giants per galaxy but that doesn't mean there's a thousand "habitable" gas giants. The crossover habitability between these and regular worlds is so unlikely you could get even weirder with these worlds than the other two, with completely different basic building sets, alternate economies - the only limit is your imagination. And available design time. And art budget. And coding capacity. But y'know, other than those.

 

[Archael90]

Stellaris spiritualism is a religion right now. But please, with religion and/or culture overhaul/DLC, make a distinction.
Make religion being religion, and spiritualism being a general belief of another, non-materialist universe/universes, and allow spiritualists to be or not to be religious of any kind, but connected to non-material world's. And allow materialists being religious over non-spiritual world.

 

[Peepijeep]

Factions and Politics!!!!

My enslaving totalitarian monarchy needs to deal with 90% of my population that are either enslaved or unhappy

 

[jose2534]

If I had to give my opinion I would say, and know that the order I present them is not important here, everything is important:

Pop rework ala Victoria 3-ish

I think this will be a fresh new way of spicing the game up and making it more interesting and complex, giving not only new and more engaging mechanics but also a great way to enhance storytelling by having a more tangible way of visualizing the crowding of a planet.

Faction rework ala Victoria 3-ish

Having factions interacting with the government, having agendas, influencing pops and the empire they are in, and even asking their empire of residency to act in a certain way with X or Y neighbor, or even interacting with factions from other empires to boost them or sabotage them, would bring the internal politics we so desperately crave. Your "Factions and politics" section here is just what I would love to see in the game, culture, politics, and personal ambitions, just as you present it, would be amazing (tweaked and refined for the final cut obviously).

War and war resolution

This is a must, having conflicts that are so static as they currently are is a killer of potential and involving storytelling. Having rigid rules of war diplomatic state feels artificial to the extreme:

1) An empire can only take part in a conflict at the start, and this is only if they are invited by the attacker, are part of a federation, are in a defensive pact, or are the vassals of one of the beligerent parts.

2) Not being able to intervene in the favor of one of the belligerents mid-conflict or go at them to impose a white peace in both belligerents.

3) Not being able to fight non-allied fleets/armies when they are occupying or going through a system/planet you also have a claim on, or not being able to rescue the main target's planets/systems from another empire when you go using a "change ideology/vassalization" CB.

All of this feels like a mood killer, the empires in the galactic stage feel like passive observers whenever a war breaks out. And it feels it is not the intent of the game and it is not in its best interest, especially when you have the AI empires guaranteeing the independence of empires already in a conflict that they are losing, it feels like an afterthought that they do when an empire hits a certain lack of fleet power and not a political maneuver that was done in advance of a conflict that could strengthen a rival or ideologically opposed empire.

Pirates and Crime

I take this as a part of the internal politics and it is needed, because crime riddled is part of the grand narratives of every sci-fi story, along with pirate rings.

Housing rework (my personal two cents)

A rework on housing to make it more scarce would be amazing, I haven't had the need to use "pop controls" or "Expell population" after pops were able to migrate on their own, there is no need whatsoever to use these mechanics when you can have multiple planets growing at the same time and letting the pops move on their own where needed so easily and fast. Plus, in later stages of the game, one can find that the worst planet has 20 jobs and 50 housing still free for occupation, by whom I don't know because rarely does one have housing in the red or a pop growth that will fill the available housing before year 30K. Also, the traits that make pops take less space are also useless and they should have more consequences, so far having pop growth is all that matters and the are no drawbacks from having all the modifiers as possible.

Habitability

I just want to say that we need habitability to have more impact on pops, so terraforming or having other species becomes more important.

Espionage

Along with factions and pops, this one I find to be extra important, the current system is inconsequential and I feel the AI doesn't use it ever. Why do I want to pick enigmatic engineering if the AI never tries to steal my tech, not only that, but having played a lot I feel that these features are for human players only (I know the AI uses the diplo incident from time to time, but favors, tech, privateers, starbase sabotage, smear campaign? Never, and suffering the current diplo opinion malus is a joke both for the player and the AI. Smear campaign makes an empire lose 100 opinion of another empire, oh yes, let me counter that with gal com member +50, def pact +20, or fed member +50, a free envoy casually sent to improve relations that could potentially give+150 opinion for free and lasting almost forever, and the trust built through pacts that gives a pseudo permanent +100 opinion on top of all the rest already said. If I'm honest, a smear campaign, just to say one operations of all available, should nullify trust gain completely and deplete the one already earned to near, or directly to, cero, and also null all opinion gained through envoys until that moment, so one can feel the weight of an invisible hand creating chaos and prompting one to research tech and use edicts that would increase the defenses of your empire against spies, having this effects the SC would really have an impact and leave empires thinking "should I keep this def pact/commercial pact/research agreement/non-aggression/federation member or should we go our separate ways", even if we find out the one doing this was a crisis empire that earns points by planting the seeds of chaos).

Involving oneself in espionage feels like a nothing sandwich, you are not a mastermind affecting the grand galactic diplomatic stage, you feel like a no-bite dog just using the excess influence and energy you have around, making "chaos" that everyone always ignores because not a single time I have seen a federation splitting or a defensive pact being broken because of anyone's machinations, and stealing tech is a joke because you never get discovered after or during the act, no one is ever mad no matter the operation done against them, and empires don't even think less of you for forcing them to own you favors when it is obvious who did that operation if you think about it. It needs a rework ASAP.

Bio and Psionics AP deep rework (bio ships)

I like this a lot, but having said all the previous points I feel we can wait this one out until we have the previous reforms in place to add depth (I'm not complaining if they come along one or multiple of the previews points tho).

Playable Nomads/Species Packs/Scenarios

I would not complain if it's done but I feel the rest is more important to make the game a giant among all the rest currently in the market.


This is my take on this, hope you had a good read!!!

 

[firespark 84]

Idk why the devs are so reluctant to commit to a full internal politics overhaul, adding unique governing systems to each authority. Parliments / congresses / citizen councils for democracies of various types, royal / imperial courts for monarchies, inner circles for dictatorships, etc, along with governors having more agency. Imperial / feudal systems should treat governors with heredetary titles and feifs far differently then a democracy with elected officials who can be removed for corruption / disloyalty. right now both feel pretty much the same, with feudal system only being slighly different. governors, generals and admerals should have more active political interests, and have agency with things like internal strife and civil war, which should be a far more common threat then it is right now. monarchies should have pretender factions, claimants to the throne, a scheming nobility, etc. of course these internal aspects should have an external one as well, like other nations being able to take pretenders as exiles and press their claims, or harbour traitors from other democracies, directly support factions in civil wars with expectations of future favors / alliances, etc. similarly, private enterprises / companies need to be a thing as well, investing in a private economy that can create massive amounts of wealth, and has its own political influence, along with governments potentially nationalizing those industries by force, in turn leading to forceful intervention by outside powers. this could also work in tandem with a trade rework as well.

 

[Pietrooperv]

Something I'd really like to roleplay as is 'The Terran' from Chrysalis on r/hfy. It's sort of a mix between voidborn and a nomadic empire. Lots of mining stations and outposts, but very few, if any, 'habitats', at least in the beginning.