Stellaris Dev Diary #367 - 4.0 Changes: Part 1

[Psykhes]

I think based on what they said in this dev diary and the previous one, it is managed per template on the species tab?


Unless there is some sort of planetary interface for species management that wasn't shown yet, I think this suggests integration settings will be empire-wide, but you can choose not to integrate specific templates.

Yes, that is clear. It wasn't a question if it is possible, but if they could make it possible.

"Just disable it then" is no option because this feature is desperately needed. Middle-Late game pop acquisition (be it be migration, refugees, conquering or raiding) is hell without that unless you go Synth because you "constantly" need to manually convert pops.
I would by a very large margin rather enable it and live with not being able to exclude planets than disable it and having the current state of affairs.

 

[Masked Ermine]

Because a lot of people want to just exclude precursors (so they don't get something useless to their build, like Zroni with machines) while keeping randomness in, and Stellaris' core vision fits closer to those people than min-maxers who only want the perfect one for themselves.

With that said, I don't see the problem here. You select only one, the entire Galaxy is a slice so you are guaranteed to get it, and their capital system will as usual spawn somewhere in or near your borders like before.

I'm far from a min-maxxer but I do like to roleplay or have specific playthroughs with a specific kind of story or mechanical series of events. That is not how I'm reading this. What I'm reading is that if you exclude all the other precursors other than the one you want the event spawns can happen anywhere which again means that either the events won't spawn because the AI surveys that system first or they're on the far side of the Galaxy and I never get to those spawn locations. And I don't think that's how the homeworlds work either because at least with some if not all of the precursors the spawn radius for the homeworld is derived from the position of the science ship when you click the window upon the completion of the final project / archeology site (which of yes as now you can cheese by not clicking the acknowledgment of the final precursor event and moving that science ship into your core systems to force on the precursor homeworld there). So in the case of the precursor events happening potentially anywhere in the galaxy your precursor homeworld could be in hostile territory could be somewhere you can't get to. At least as I'm understanding the current system.

I would also argue that those robot players that complain about getting the Zroni, aren't leveraging the fact that they get a free access to an extremely rare resource that they can float their economies on on top of all of the minor artifacts they can get, they can ignore the rest of the psychic chain if they want, they never have to touch the shroud speaking of which they also get the storm caster technology which in theory if used right is very powerful.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

I don't see any supply resource.
I though planets and trades are going to be maintained by this supply resource, so whats changed?

They will be talking in-depth about different features in different developer diaries. I expect the pop and trade changes to get one dev diary each, later down the line.

Yes, if it's competitive. I don't play multiplayer competitively, I play it cooperatively, so the fact we can't individually choose or at minimum not get duplicates makes this basically useless.

Several options:
1. Exactly the same, but with an additional option preventing duplicates (IE if someone already has Cybrex, nobody else can gain the Cybrex precursor, they can only start other precursor chains).
2. Select per player (empire creation), not per game, global override setting available for competitive players.
3. Allow duplicates, but it also generates duplicate rewards (two players pick Baol, two initial archeology sites are created leading to different yet identical archeology sites and a different yet identical home system + relic + Secrets of the Baol).

Any of these will fix the problem. It's not hard to fix, they just didn't bother to do it.

4. It is made possible for an empire to pursue multiple precursors. At least until completing the first one.

• This means that if two players end up in a "border" area where two precursors are available, they no longer risk a situation where they both have to be stuck with getting the same one or nothing at all. If they end up entirely within the same area, they can still resolve sharing precursor by exploring outwards until they get another one.
• If geographic limits still apply to where the clues spawn, this change would also mean that there would be no risk of getting stuck with a fringe precursor (few subsequent precursor anomalies) rather than the one which covers 99 % of the area you are exploring (many subsequent precursor anomalies).

This solution would also lend itself better towards a future expansion of the precursor system, where empires could trade different precursor clues/MacGuffins with each other.

 

[Lorenerd11]

am the only one unimpressed by the new UI changes for the ship and species windows?

I'm not a fan of how much space they take up, now.

I don't think either interface takes up more space? The windows seem to be the same size they currently are, just using the space differently.

The species window seems better optimized too, now you get to collapse the sub-species.

 

[Psykhes]

I'm far from a min-maxxer but I do like to roleplay or have specific playthroughs with a specific kind of story or mechanical series of events. That is not how I'm reading this. What I'm reading is that if you exclude all the other precursors other than the one you want the event spawns can happen anywhere which again means that either the events won't spawn because the AI surveys that system first or they're on the far side of the Galaxy and I never get to those spawn locations.

That is not how this is working.

Firstly, the AI cannot even trigger the precursor anomalies or dig sites, so surveying from it does not matter.

Secondly, there is not a fixed spot where those spawn. Every system a player surveys has a fixed precursor. But that just means you have a chance to spawn an event of said precursor in that system (which a few caveats, i.e. Boal need a specific planet type too) So it is totally random in which system you actually get those.
You can test it easily by just playing till you find a precursor with the same starting save multiple times. You will not always get it in the same systems.

And, no, it is highly unlikely they will change that.
YOu can also do this new feature of theirs by save game editing. Just pick one precursor tag and replace all other precursor tags with that one and you'll have the same precursor "everywhere". But they won't suddenly spawn on the other side of the galaxy.

 

[Critical Ethics]

I think based on what they said in this dev diary and the previous one, it is managed per template on the species tab?


Unless there is some sort of planetary interface for species management that wasn't shown yet, I think this suggests integration settings will be empire-wide, but you can choose not to integrate specific templates.

Yes, it's not specified in the text but the gif shows that you can set individual templates to integrate or not integrate. So you can make a generic template and set it to default and force everything else to integrate, then make a forge world template and set it to not integrate and kick off a special project for all your forge worlds. You might later get some forge world pops growing on your other planets and vice versa but you won't get your forge workers automigrating to the generic template.

 

[Drinko]

Awesome seems I won’t be needing that wonky ‘precursor picker’ mod anymore.

 

[Harkinian's Dinner]

My biggest question about the new Species menu:

Will it be possible to finally see which planets your species are on from this menu now(without having to make a template out of them and click apply template, which is only available once species modification itself is available)?

 

[Huskermax5]

A: can I please beg for a screenshot/next DD to be of custom ship design? I literally asked for it in the feedback form so I am so excited about that. I forgot which page it was but being able to not be forced to use a template would be amazing

B: if you say force only the Forst League does that mean that the anomalies and such will be galaxy wide and not only near your starting position?

C: the screen where you edit species traits feels like a downgrade. Increases scrolling a ton. Echo Montus video

 

[Critical Ethics]

Yes, that is clear. It wasn't a question if it is possible, but if they could make it possible.

"Just disable it then" is no option because this feature is desperately needed. Middle-Late game pop acquisition (be it be migration, refugees, conquering or raiding) is hell without that unless you go Synth because you "constantly" need to manually convert pops.
I would by a very large margin rather enable it and live with not being able to exclude planets than disable it and having the current state of affairs.

Assigning default pops per species per planet would be a nightmare, but if you check out my last post you can pretty much do what you want, just but the way you phrased it.

 

[ImperatorRoman]

Would I be correct in assuming that the species template window in the dev diary is a branch that does not include the upcoming pop changes?

 

[insanebe]

This is exactly what i want, i have found whenever I play multiplayer I get the same precursor as another player and ultimately only 1 player gets a precursor because of this.
This imbalances the multiplayer game as precursors can give pretty huge early-mid-game buffs.

I think all player-controlled empires should get a precursor of some kind even if it isn't the one you want or expect.
Roll a die, the player who rolled a 6 gets a powerful precursor for his faction (For example, cybrex for Machine Empire) the player that rolls a 4 gets a lesser/different precursor (For example Zroni), but not NOTHING which is what currently happens.

 

[Masked Ermine]

That is not how this is working.

Firstly, the AI cannot even trigger the precursor anomalies or dig sites, so surveying from it does not matter.

Secondly, there is not a fixed spot where those spawn. Every system a player surveys has a fixed precursor. But that just means you have a chance to spawn an event of said precursor in that system (which a few caveats, i.e. Boal need a specific planet type too) So it is totally random in which system you actually get those.
You can test it easily by just playing till you find a precursor with the same starting save multiple times. You will not always get it in the same systems.

And, no, it is highly unlikely they will change that.
YOu can also do this new feature of theirs by save game editing. Just pick one precursor tag and replace all other precursor tags with that one and you'll have the same precursor "everywhere". But they won't suddenly spawn on the other side of the galaxy.

I was under the impression that once a system had been surveyed whether it was by the player empire or the AI it precluded anomalies from occurring. If that has been in understood incorrectly then that's on me but if that's how it works even though AI empires can't spawn that anomaly they can preclude anomalies from occurring. Which meant that if for whatever reason the whole galactic slice had their precursors established away from the player empire or failed to spawn within a certain region around the player empire what ostensively would happen is that those precursors events would be precluded from spawning at all. Which I suppose could be played with by waiting for to accrue enough minor artifacts to buy precursor projects or get lucky with either I think it's the curators or other empires or lucky events where they give you free precursor tokens. Frankly it's just a question of seeing it in action it's just I think I would have preferred a system much more akin to crisis selection then this reduced slot machine methodology.

 

[Toppopia]

Posted this on the steam forum but thought I would post the idea here as well. I love the sound of 4.0, gonna be a nice overhaul of the game and I have a suggestion about the species template menu.

Can you add in the species template menu a few check boxes that works even if a default template is selected. (The trait point limits would apply so if you have no free points then it wont work and other balancing considerations you think are needed devs):
1) Pops to automatically change their biome preference to the planet they are on when you get that special genetic technology.
2) Pops get the job specific traits when they are working a job, with the new population changes this would be a huge boon to over time putting pops into bigger groups.

Maybe you've already taken this into consideration with the pop rework but these options would mean we can have our default template and if we want hyper specialised pops we can leave a few trait points free and the pops will over time adjust to the planet/job they are on.

(Its been a while since i've used these genetic technologies so maybe this suggestion is moot anyway)

 

[Grenartia]

I'm far from a min-maxxer but I do like to roleplay or have specific playthroughs with a specific kind of story or mechanical series of events. That is not how I'm reading this. What I'm reading is that if you exclude all the other precursors other than the one you want the event spawns can happen anywhere which again means that either the events won't spawn because the AI surveys that system first or they're on the far side of the Galaxy and I never get to those spawn locations. And I don't think that's how the homeworlds work either because at least with some if not all of the precursors the spawn radius for the homeworld is derived from the position of the science ship when you click the window upon the completion of the final project / archeology site (which of yes as now you can cheese by not clicking the acknowledgment of the final precursor event and moving that science ship into your core systems to force on the precursor homeworld there). So in the case of the precursor events happening potentially anywhere in the galaxy your precursor homeworld could be in hostile territory could be somewhere you can't get to. At least as I'm understanding the current system.

I would also argue that those robot players that complain about getting the Zroni, aren't leveraging the fact that they get a free access to an extremely rare resource that they can float their economies on on top of all of the minor artifacts they can get, they can ignore the rest of the psychic chain if they want, they never have to touch the shroud speaking of which they also get the storm caster technology which in theory if used right is very powerful.

So, my experience with that last paragraph is pretty old (lockdown era, back when my friends and I could reliably schedule multiplayer games), but I happened to get the worst luck. Playing a mechanist, rolling the Zroni, the area I spawned in only having the two guaranteed habitables (and they were terrible planets, too), and I was literally the last person to roll any habitat techs, and by like, 50 years, even being in a federation dedicated to research (yeah, it was rough).

Selling off the zro was useful for balancing my energy income, but that was literally it. Even the Baol or Vaultaum would've been better, IIRC.

 

[Idle America]

If every gaming company was like this my wallet would be in the ICU.

 

[NilsFabian]

I have one request for the species mechanic.

When it comes to robots, please give us the general opportunity to assimilate existing robots into the Robot species of my empire. It is annoying that I end up with 10 different Robot Species that can't be merged into one species

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

It is annoying that I end up with 10 different Robot Species that can't be merged into one species

All empires have the option of smashing all robots into 0 species. That's even less robot clutter in the species list.

I agree with your suggestion though.

 

[Thiend]

View attachment 1246573

 

[Pale Blue]

Will species traits get a touch up? Many dont feel that impactful. Especially the generic resource traits. Anyone has the automod trait with generic more resource output. Later during the game they are drowned in other additive modifiers. The trade ones feel much better because they modify the base output that then gets the other modifiers on top.
Others like the rare resource traits of lithoids are so insignificant all they are used for is early edict access.