Stellaris Dev Diary #365 - 2024 in Review

[Dekent]

Lo, for the lord sayeth "the third mod-pocalyse cometh"
Eladrin 12:12

 

[Thinking and Pretty]

Imagine if they release this new pop/job system AND one day get round to reducing ship/fleet numbers too. I think we'll be able to play galaxies on Huge size and into late game

They seem to want the opposite with fleets, given they rebalanced things to make smaller ships better. I want them to make smaller ships obsolete so the AI stops building so many tiny ships.

 

[Critical Ethics]

They seem to want the opposite with fleets, given they rebalanced things to make smaller ships better. I want them to make smaller ships obsolete so the AI stops building so many tiny ships.

I've seen in other places people say they would like the ships to start at Destroyers, and the Corvette models be reused as basically a kind of super strike craft that you can only put on stations and Titans (and planets?).

And I think I would like this very much.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

The AI completing precursors is something we're planning on experimenting with as well, which is one reason we recommend picking at least four.

I had a feeling this could be the case, because a minimum recommendation would seem strange if it only affected a single human player.

Also I'd like if research agreements allowed player empires to get freeby precursors insights from AI empires also researching the same precursors, and espionage allowed players to duplicate insights from other empires, and maybe even capturing excavated sites has a chance to get you an insight. Basically using logical outgrowths of existing systems to put the thumb heavily on the player's side of the scales but not a garauntee. Also it's just neat to get updates from the neighbours on your common research project.

If I'm actively competing with AI empires I would very much like at least some of the other stuff I said. Ignoring the thumb on the scales thing, visibility is the difference between something feeling like race vs feeling like an arbitrary loss of something I'm "entitled" to.

I think it's interesting to experiment with this but it doesn't sound great going by MP experience. It's very unsatisfying to get no more anomalies and wonder what happened, only to later learn that someone finished the chain.

The idea of multiple empires competing to find an ancient precursor home system is a very compelling story, if stellaris goes that way it would be good if there were systems to support that rather than having every empire operate in isolation. For instance: different empires should be aware of the progress of others, there should be opportunities to interfere with other's search or benefit from it, diplomatic options etc.

If it's just going to be a blank race against the AI where you have no information like in MP, until you slowly realise you aren't getting any more anomalies (or see the home system later elsewhere) then it doesn't sound worth it compared to keeping them player only.

A long time ago, in a thread far, far away... (a suggestion thread with some additional systems that could facilitate obtaining more clues, perhaps from other players)

• Precursor clues could either be plain counters with a target amount or different unique clues that require a full set, and the clues could either be duplicable ("information") or unique ("key objects") between empires.
• Wargoals for capturing / forced sharing of clues.
• Looting for clues.
• Diplomacy.
• Trading (especially if empires can obtain clues from different precursors; trades may offer mutual benefit then).
• Galactic Community resolutions for forced sharing, or offer voluntary disclosure for popularity.
• Intelligence, Operations.
• Research (new Archaeostudies technologies).
• Enclaves, Caravaneers.
• Fallen Empires.
• The Shroud.
• The Galatron.
• (The L-Cluster could also be reworked into being a precursor quest.)

Astral rifts could probably be thrown in as well.

 

[Nudeldifudel]

Really missed last week's dev diary which was planned to go over the feedback from dev diary 364...will we see that next year?

Yeah I missed that too, I was really looking forward to it.

 

[Uburian]

The AI completing precursors is something we're planning on experimenting with as well, which is one reason we recommend picking at least four. If you set it to only Cybrex, then, well, the Cybrex may be the only precursor in the galaxy, but you might not be the one that gets it.

Not a fan tbh. It kind of sidesteps the whole reason people wanted selectable precursors to begin with.

I'm afraid that I concur with Kataclyszm here. The main reason why selectable precursors have been a requested feature for so long is because people want to... well... choose them, either for role-playing or meta-gaming reasons (or both). The new system, as presented so far at least, is no better in that regard than the current one, and would arguably be worse.


I think that the best solution would simply be to allow players to choose between a series of options:

• Allowed precursors (from 0 to all): This would allow you to choose which precursors you want to spawn trough the galaxy.
• Preferred precursor (up to 1): This precursor would be guaranteed to spawn close to the player's starting system.
• Ai empires allowed to participate (yes/no): This would allow Ai empires to discover, explore and claim precursors. If a preferred precursor is selected by the player, they are barred from discovering and exploring them.
• Multiple precursors discoveries/Single precursor discovery: The first option would allow both players and Ai Empires to discover, explore and claim multiple precursors trough the game. The second one would limit them to exploring their first discovered precursor.

 

[Masked Ermine]

Omg yes-yes-yes it feels almost like my suggestions bear fruit (100% me definitely not the devs just iterating on a system as usual)
Jokes aside I'm very excited to see what ya'll come up with for a better pop/job management system ❣

Yes, and then in the second breath Eladrin whiffs it up by saying they'd like to/are experimenting with have/ing the precursors be 'competed over with the AI'...bull.

It's bad enough when the archaeological precursors get spawned in other empires (especially if it happens to be a friendly one...), and then gets glitched out because that empire does the precursor site, stalling the whole thing. Just...No, no no no no no, no.

As for the Pops Remanagement Again 2: Strike of the Game Breakage for Years....not as enthusiastic as others. Not because I think on the planned functional level it wouldn't be better than current but because....it's Paradox...and literally two weeks ago they literally broke their game by introducing a bug via a bugfix because they are still engaging in warp speed hotfixes because the DLC/updates don't get the quality control testing it needs....so...I can only imagine the hay Spiffing Brit et al is going to make of this when it eventually comes out because...it's going to be broken for at least months if not years as the AI vomits over itself because it can't handle the changes. Heck, the AI still vomits over itself now from the last pops refit which was...what 2-3 years ago? I'm sorry, I like Stellaris, and generally am pretty happy with how open the Dev team is...but dang, fix the bugs you got before creating a whole new bugged system. HECK the navigational pathing bug for marauders still EXISTS and it's been here since I think marauders existed, we still get the emergency FTL into the battle you were emergency FTLing from bug going on.

 

[KNakamura]

I'm afraid that I concur with Kataclyszm here. The main reason why selectable precursors have been a requested feature for so long is because people want to choose them, either for role-playing or meta-gaming reasons (or both). The new system, as presented so far at least, is no better in that regard than the current one, and would arguably be worse.


I think that the best solution would simply be to allow players to choose between a series of options:

• Allowed precursors (from 0 to all): This would allow you to choose which precursors you want to spawn trough the galaxy.
• Preferred precursor (up to 1): This precursor would be guaranteed to spawn close to the player's starting system.
• Ai empires allowed to participate (yes/no): This would allow Ai empires to discover, explore and claim precursors. If a preferred precursor is selected by the player, they are barred from discovering and exploring them.
• Multiple precursors discoveries/Single precursor discovery: The first option would allow both players and Ai Empires to discover, explore and claim multiple precursors trough the game. The second one would limit them to exploring their first discovered precursor.

I have to agree. Let the player decide if the AIs should claim precursors.

 

[SirBlackAxe]

My concern with AI precursors is that AI prioritizes investigating anomalies over surveying, and ignores how long they'll take, so unless something is changed there AI empires that come across level 8+ precursor anomalies with their level 1-2 scientist(s) right at the beginning of the game will just stop expanding for a decade.

Disabling a couple precursors that I've had too often recently or specifically don't want is how I'd want to use the game setting though, I'm personally less interested in forcing a specific one.

 

[Skeletr0nKing]

Make it so everyone can end the exploration chain as long as they study all the sites & discovered homeworld regardless of who discovered and visited it first.

Also add a joint federation archeology policy where all federation members can investigate precursor sites in federated space and individually learn from them without blocking other empires.

Add overlord archeology, in which the overlord can study precursors in vassal systems and learn from them (but the vassal can't unless stated in the agreement)

Add an archeological treaty, where you are given the right to explore sites of friendly species for a number of years.

 

[Kataclyszm]

The new system, as presented so far at least, is no better in that regard than the current one, and would arguably be worse.

Right? Like, what's the difference.

Today: "You might not get the precursor you wanted."

Proposed Change: "You might not get the precursor you wanted even after selecting it."

 

[Arduunos]

I'm not sure where in the post you all see the precursors post? But from the gist of what I'm getting, the idea is that you can pick a precursor, but other empires can prevent you from finishing it or get to it first? That is not why people want to pick precursors. They want to be able to give their Empire the cool quest and associated space relic that matches their Empire's theme. Letting other Empires steal this away from them defeats the entire point.

As a special challenge mode, though, it sounds kind of cool. Just please allow players to actually finish the mission line in the default gameplay. I'm sure enough people chimed in on your feedback threads about wanting more customization and exploration that you understand why this will be a disappointing change. A tall empire will never be able to get any precursor stories, let alone the ones they want.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

I'm not sure where in the post you all see the precursors post?

It's a secret. The clue was at the end of the dev diary.

P.S. Cetana has some secret presents for the good little sapients that are inquisitive enough to find them.

The header image of the dev diary shows Cetana.
The full image is not visible in this thread, but it can be opened in a new tab, or downloaded, or linked as an image in the comments where it gets resized to fit the width (rather than cropped, as in the dev diary header).

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

My concern with AI precursors is that AI prioritizes investigating anomalies over surveying, and ignores how long they'll take, so unless something is changed there AI empires that come across level 8+ precursor anomalies with their level 1-2 scientist(s) right at the beginning of the game will just stop expanding for a decade.

AI priorities seem like something that should be easy enough to tweak, if the AI would obsess too much over the precursors.

The precursor system could also be tweaked, so that anomalies and digsites do not appear too early, either by moving them entirely out of the surveying process or by adding "level 2 surveying".

I personally think the precursors should be more of an early midgame feature, giving your empire a chance to find its own identity and place in the galaxy before the discovery of the precursors begins shaking up everything. One of the reasons why I tend to play with precursors disabled is that they become such a dominant part of the gameplay experience that I feel like I don't get to experience and enjoy my empire/species design, and figure out who they are in this particular randomly generated galaxy, before the game tells me that "the penguins who turned to a life of crime" (inspired by a phrase from a nature documentary rather than the comic character) now are "the empire that discovered the Cybrex ringworld and used it to achieve galactic domination".

 

[Eladrin]

Relax, when I said we would experiment with AIs getting precursor events I mean exactly that - experiment with it. In the first test I wasn't happy with it because it makes too many precursors happen, and you effectively end up with all of them. (After seizing Cybrex Alpha and the like.)

It made things feel more "the same", which isn't desirable.

 

[Triscopic]

Eladrin: we’re playing around with some ideas
Everyone: *panic*
Eladrin: I literally said we were just playing around with ideas
Also Eladrin: why do I tell them anything?

 

[Kataclyszm]

why do I tell them anything?

I mean he tells us the ideas and we give feedback on them. That's far from 'panicking'.

 

[Panzerslothen]

I'm really interested to know more about that pop job adjustment*. How does it work?

Also, any idea on when we might expect the 2025 Open Beta to go live please, Eladrin? I'm guessing late January or (more likely) February - is that about right?

(*and everything here indicates 'adjustment', even if it's a big adjustment, rather than 'rework' or 'overhaul')

 

[A Cat]

The current pop system is great in theory.

In practice, it means pops get lathed, shielded, swept, cracked or purged to speed up the late game.

 

[Echo Candor One]

Who ever has more than 50 pops?

Signed, the clone army origin gang