Stellaris Dev Diary #42 - Heinlein patch (part 3)

[Philthy]

Actually,

It's not a 40k reference.

You may want to ask yourself who you are, though, or what it is you want.

Withholding this information my not be entirely ETHICAL?

 

[Cassilda]

Heinlein will have some mechanics for having automatic healing of armies when not engaged in battle? Or something to auto-land troops on planets in peacetime?

 

[daemonbone]

I have stumbled upon (once) species that had high radiation tolerance, and had 100% habitability for tomb worlds.
Highly rare I guess, but that one example shows that it can be done.

I had the same experience once with a desert fungoid. Once uplifted I had a duel use tomb and desert world colonizer.
In that game I did not get any irradiated cockroaches.
I kind of get a laugh out of sending forth my irradiated cockroach minions to colonize the galaxy......

 

[Rotkohl]

It's not a 40k reference.

You may want to ask yourself who you are, though, or what it is you want.

I want to live just long enough to be there when they cut off the Fallen Empire leader's head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into his lifeless eyes and wave, like this . Can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr Wiz?

 

[Cheikar]

I have to say that the scale and depth of all the proposed changes so far for Heinlein are staggering. There is a great deal of thought being put into this patch, and many game systems are being heavily redesigned. It almost makes the previous two patches look like hotfixes in comparison. Massive kudos to the devs for the amount of work being put into Heinlein. After its release, Stellaris will look and feel very different, and IMO much better.

I think a double entry climate matrix would be the obvious solution

Trying to fit the existing types in the matrix does something like this :

               Hot            Warm            Cold
Dry           Desert          Arid            Alpine
Humid        Savanna       Continental       Tundra
Wet          Jungle          Oceanic         Arctic

Oceanic and Jungle could be switched btw i'm not sure wether you should consider an oceanic as more hot than a jungle.

IMO, a climate matrix adds unnecessary complexity to the system. And for what benefit?

I have no issue with the classifications being Dry, Wet, Cold. I think many people are misinterpreting the classifications. They don't need to describe varying states of a consistent variable e.g. temperature or humidity. They just need to be descriptive of a shared feature of the planet classes within them. Desert, Arid, and Savanna climates can be characterized by their scarcity of water. The climates described as "Wet" are the opposite, describing climates where free water is relatively abundant. What characteristic is shared among Arctic, Tundra, and Alpine/Boreal climates? They're all cold.

My main point is that the classifications don't need to be related to each other. They just need internal consistency. You could just as easily have them be Warm, Wet, and Cold. As long as it still describes a shared characteristic of the members, it's valid. A matrix solution complicates things by trying to making every planet type related to the others through two variables.

However, if you don't like that explanation, you can view the categories as a measure of precipitation and potential evapotranspiration. If precipitation is lower but PET is high, it falls into the "Dry" category. If both are low (usually due to cold temperatures and indicating a not so active hydrosphere), it's "Cold". If both are high (indicating a highly active hydrosphere and at least warm temperatures), it's "Wet". Granted, this isn't a perfect solution, but it works well enough.

I'd still like to advocate for the planets being categorized along both hot-cold and wet-dry lines, but then only have one axis count for game purposes.

As such, I'd go:

For example, if your species starts out with Arid, then you have base 80% hability on those worlds, 60% on Desert and Arctic ones, and 20% for the rest.

Notes:

1) Deserts are characterized by lack of rainfall, not heat. Parts of Antarctica are deserts, even though the continent is hardly balmy. And even deserts that do get hot experience huge shifts in temperatures due to the lack of plant cover. Still, since most players will assume "desert = hot," I'll leave it as the warmest of that bunch.

2) I'd adjust Alpine to Boreal: characterized in Stellaris by extensive vegetation ranging from temperate rain forests to alpine valleys. Or if you want to go the more traditional route of a cool forest, then swap Ocean and Boreal in the chart.

Just my 2 cents.

I agree with you on Boreal, but otherwise I have to disagree with your matrix. Does it make sense that an organism adapted to Arid environments would do well in the freezing temperatures of the Arctic?

 

[Zentay]

A wet and temperate planet would have a lot of swamps. So Swamp world. Boreal is wrong because it refers to a cold climate.

 

[Raticon]

Looks like a nice patch. I especially like the changes to the planets.

With that in mind, will there be any more varieties added for the barren planets? Having only 2 kinds, one brown and rocky and one blue and frozen makes for a rather dull selection if im honest.

 

[Daimonin]

@Wiz

I like that you are looking at habitability, though I still wish the actual planets were more alien then just different mono-biome planets. Chlorine, Methane, etc would be so much more interesting. But oh well, that's not what you want to do fine.

But I DO think you need to re-examine the "Continental" planet, as it makes... no sense. Considering earth is classified as Continental, it means that Continental planets have every biome on them... which is what Gaia's are supposed to have. So what, continental planets are just "gaia-lite", but for some odd reason still uninhabitable to species from say a cold climate? Why can't a frozen species colonise the arctic? Why can't a desert species colonise the Sahara?

Shouldn't you rename continental to something like "Temperate", and change Earth to be a Gaian world, to actually make your mono-biomed planets consistent?

 

[EuropaCam]

However, if you don't like that explanation, you can view the categories as a measure of precipitation and potential evapotranspiration. If precipitation is lower but PET is high, it falls into the "Dry" category. If both are low (usually due to cold temperatures and indicating a not so active hydrosphere), it's "Cold". If both are high (indicating a highly active hydrosphere and at least warm temperatures), it's "Wet". Granted, this isn't a perfect solution, but it works well enough.

That you'd have to explain that rationalization, while wet-to-cold/dry-to-hot are pretty self-explanatory, would seem to favor the latter if PDX is gunning for simplicity.

I agree with you on Boreal, but otherwise I have to disagree with your matrix. Does it make sense that an organism adapted to Arid environments would do well in the freezing temperatures of the Arctic?

Like deserts, arid areas are not necessarily hot -- it's a matter of precipitation, not temperature. So if for game purposes PDX classifies Desert worlds as dry/hot (since the game had them next to Tropical in the original wheel), and Arctic as dry/cold (as there is normally low humidity in the extreme cold), then Arid can fill the niche of dry/average. Yes, it's a bit of a fudge, but it might be easier to keep in mind than Dry/Wet/Cold.

 

[Pchang]

I want to live just long enough to be there when they cut off the Fallen Empire leader's head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into his lifeless eyes and wave, like this . Can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr Wiz?

Vir was one of my favorite characters.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Sector fleets would be very interesting. Whether or not it makes it into the next major patch, they would definitely be fun ("fun"?) to have if the sector decided to rebel and takes its little navy with it.

 

[EuropaCam]

A wet and temperate planet would have a lot of swamps. So Swamp world. Boreal is wrong because it refers to a cold climate.

I did say that I would use "Boreal" in a somewhat non-textbook definition sort of way for the game. Or if you want to use it strictly for colder forests, then it could be moved to the cold/wet slot and Ocean worlds up to wet/temperate -- although water at anything other than shallow water at lower latitudes tends to quite cold, hence my thinking there.

I did consider Swamp worlds, but swamps are already tile blockers. Wetlands worlds?

 

[nrader]

@Wiz
Will there be something that prevents players in MP from joining federations or at least something that locks federation victory (conflicting ethics for example)? And if there is nothing, does it mean federation victory can be achieved without any fight or any other player's work -- Just click "join" with the others and the match is won?
In SP computers follow their ethics, dont join alliances with opposite ones and blah blah blah, so i'm mostly worried about MP part.

 

[Wizzington]

I could add an option to turn off Federation victory?

 

[Ephafn]

Sector fleets would be very interesting. Whether or not it makes it into the next major patch, they would definitely be fun ("fun"?) to have if the sector decided to rebel and takes its little navy with it.

I agree, especially if in times of need they could be conscripted to the empire navy (for example if you just lost 80% of your fleet in a bad battle), to give more depth to wars.

 

[nrader]

I could add an option to turn off Federation victory?

I didn't mean that. I mean that the situation where everyone can win through this victory-condition regardless of empire type can be not so fun in MP. IF some players are forced to win alone (militarist or xenophobes maybe?) it can be lead to some fun gameplay. Like, militarists and xenophobes join temporary alliance(non-aggresive pact beetwen each other\oral agreement\etc.) to crush federation and to fight each other after that achieved.
Though disabling victory conditions can work too, of course.

 

[ius]

There are insults, why not complements or gifts? a 1 year of Xeno pets is sure to oblige an emperor, or a pile of energy credits and or minerals should make even the most bloodthirsty warlord look at you more favorably. Protection Fees might also be a nice addition for Pacifists dealing with Militarists.

A diplomatic compliment would translate to an increase relationship mechanic, it is basically what the old embassy option was. (Establishing an embassy to improve relations with an AI nation for 1 per month and up to +100). In Patch 1.2 embassies were replaced with Trust. Trust builds over time from having active diplomatic treaties (such as a Non-Aggression Pact or Alliance) and increases opinion by up to +100.

Concerning gifts, you can. Set-up a trade deal and ask nothing in return. How much this effects Trust I do not know, but am interested in knowing, as I gifted my neighboring Fallen Empire whilst I took that Gaia world for myself.

 

[Praetorian44]

Most of these sound like really good changes. I'm excited to hear about the changes to Fallen Empires after reading Wiz's tweats.

 

[SolarGuy]

@Wiz

As such, we've done away with the tech gating on colonization, and instead instituted a 30% minimum habitability requirement to colonize a planet. You will also be unable to relocate pops to a planet if their habitability there would be under the 30% minimum.

So, what will happen if I turn a desert world with desert people on it into an arctic iceball via terraforming? Will they disappear (pretty much like purging), or leave (go to other planets in my empire), or will the game just glitch out horribly?

Also, one galaxy gen option should be changed a little: In my opinion we should be able to play without ANY other FTL-capable empires, only with pre-FTLs instead. Basically, setting the minimum of AI-controlled empires to 0 instead of 1 would be everything changed.

 

[Wizzington]

Pops under the habitability threshold will die off over time. Terraforming a planet in a way that kills the pops will basically be treated as purging.