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

[Federalist girl]

Glad to hear Alpine and Savannah worlds will get unique city graphics. I'm hoping Gaia worlds will get some too -- since right now they just use continental graphics.

 

[Killer Turnus]

Please reconsider, I liked alliances because they were like Factions in Hearts of Iron 4. You didn't have to completely give up your national sovereignty and submit to someone else's rule. What could distinguish alliances from federations is if you made alliances like they actually operate. If an individual of an alliance goes to war it could give them an option to call their allies to war instead of a vote that drags everyone into the war. Operating independently of your alliance would definitely create a difference between the procedure of federations and alliances and allow you to keep them in the game.

Welp, looks like i have to "retire" my copy of stellaris. I find federations unplayable. The fact that i HAVE to submit myself to the whims of the AI or play solo, and vulnerable, means the game will become unplayable, through my gaming standards. It's depressing they've gone this route.

 

[Orinsul]

Climate Wheel was a good compromise, and was easy to get used to.
As Wiz said it had it's problems(particularly the desert/jungle adjacency), but it was still a structurally sound system.

I do however feel that we do not have enough information to truly see how the new system will work, and thus have a concern over exactly how it will work, especially with regards to terraformation.

In short:
NEED MORE INPUT!

The desert jungle adjancy is kind of why i liked it?
It wasnt just, wet or dry species, this species could be a hot species that like deserts and oceans because they were hot, like their home in the jungle. Not just, all the wet places v all the dry. Like, each world type used to have its own partners, now there are only three groups to pick. its more than halved the options and the difference between those worlds that are in them are well, cosmetic.
Youre not choosing, desert or arid. Youre choosing dry and going which dry do you want to look like, it makes no difference they all have the same partners so eh
dont bother tying it into the story

It really feels like, taking away alot of story possibilies, while not making it easier to understand, it'll be just as easy to understand, just far less interesting as there will only be three classes, wearing different skins.

 

[BossFogg]

Super excited for this patch!

(Even if it is going to totally break my mod >.<)

 

[Bob_Herzog]

Yeah, I was quite about to ask is droid colonisation possible. Please don't wipe it out completly. It's quite sensible to have automatic stations on planets where you can't build a normal colony.
I know it can break balance (just build a robotic colship in the beginning so you can colonise EVERY planet; not I'm against it, but "balance" issues always quite often take precedence before roleplaying and logic), so, maybe, it can be possible just to add new type of station? Or maybe add a negative modifier to a pure low-tech robotic world (you know autonomous low-tech robots works worse without constant supervision)?

Well it is not an option right from the begining. You can't build a colony ship with normal robots. You need the droids which is already the second one. I'm certain that can be nerfed against the research cost it took for additional planet types.

Another method would be to chose certain traits btw.. Totally forgot about adaptive and very adaptive. They might bcome more intersting choises for expansive builds now (currently they are only really interesting when you go for big happyness boni and even then they are usually not really nesseary in the long run).

 

[Lord Milutin]

Well it is not an option right from the begining. You can't build a colony ship with normal robots. You need the droids which is already the second one. I'm certain that can be nerfed against the research cost it took for additional planet types.

Another method would be to chose certain traits btw.. Totally forgot about adaptive and very adaptive. They might bcome more intersting choises for expansive builds now (currently they are only really interesting when you go for big happyness boni and even then they are usually not really nesseary in the long run).

Well, basically, if you choose extremely adaptive now, it will already make your species at 40% habitability, which in turn won't make them die on another type of world. Add 10% from tech and 5% from engos vapor and you have yourself a nice 55% on those planets!
That's also 95% for planets of the same climate like your home planet.

 

[Bob_Herzog]

Ok I have two answers for that.

First the expansionists:

1. Habibility above 50% is only truly worth something, if you go for a strategy that gives you the happiness to need it. As expansionist you usually don't go for that but for either combating ethic diversion and/or boni on minerals, energy or population growth. So all above 50% is pointless anyway.
   
2. With the current densety of planets I never turned up to not have enough of the home type (80%) and the two neighboruing types (60%) for early expansion.
3. Later expansion can easily be supplemented by genetic engineering just changeing the home plnet type of the population affected.
4. Add to that the 10% by research and the at least 5% from a building and there is really no need for ever chosing adaptive or very adaptive as expansionist.

Second the happiness boni strategy:

1. On first glance it seems like a good option for them. But it needs some time to get the stuff that gives you the happiness you are aiming for (usually the rare buildings from you ethos choice are needed). So for the early expansions you are limited in how much happiness you can push anyway so the 80-60% from the frist planettypes should be enough
   
2. Later the same argument as before. Genetic engineering and regular habibility from research is enough to keep you well above the 90% habibility even without chosing either adaptive or very adaptive.

But severly reducing the number of habitable world might get expansionist to wish they could switch to different types much more early. So that choise alone might boost those traits. Currently I never had a game run where I ever thought I would have needed to pick either of them.

 

[Lord Milutin]

Well, there's still the option of our pops turning to genetic engineering by themselves and becoming Super-Species like now. The downside is that they usually have different traits than our species.

 

[NHunter_rus]

I'm probably going to be lynched for this, but why not change the effects of habitability on pops' happiness to the following:

actual happiness = (50% + happiness modifiers)  / 100% * habitability.

Thus, if a pop has 30% habitability on a planet, then it's new 'default' happiness will be only 15%. And +10% from whatever modifier will turn only into +3% actual happiness. Good luck with aggressive expansion without making sure that your pops can live well on that planet.

On the second thought, this seems to be a little too cruel. Perhaps, add additional 10% flat? So that pops still have 50% on the homeworld type worlds and 40% on the next tier?

 

[Lord Milutin]

I'm probably going to be lynched for this, but why not change the effects of habitability on pops' happiness to the following:

actual happiness = (50% + happiness modifiers) * 100 * habitability.

Thus, if a pop has 30% habitability on a planet, then it's new 'default' happiness will be only 15%. And +10% from whatever modifier will turn only into +3% actual happiness. Good luck with aggressive expansion without making sure that your pops can live well on that planet.

On the second thought, this seems to be a little too cruel. Perhaps, add additional 10% flat? So that pops still have 50% on the homeworld type worlds and 40% on the next tier?

Why would you even want to do such a thing? Happiness works fine as it is now.
Also, your code math is just wrong. I don't know if you're just trolling or really don't know math, but based on what you proposed, it would be (50% + 10% (happiness modifier)) * 100 * 30% (habitability) = 60% * 100 * 30% = 5.400.000 happiness. So no. FYI, you should always put first 10 followed by 50%.

 

[NHunter_rus]

Why would you even want to do such a thing? Happiness works fine as it is now.
Also, your code math is just wrong. I don't know if you're just trolling or really don't know math, but based on what you proposed, it would be (50% + 10 (happiness modifier)) * 100 * 30% (habitability) = 500 * 30% = 150 happiness. So no. FYI, you should always put first 10 followed by 50%.

As far as I remember, expression inside brackets is calculated first. So, at very least, it will be (50% + 10%) * 100 = 60% * 100. Which then is multiplied by habitability (in percents).

That said, you're probably right about me having problems with percents... it should probably be not *100 but /100%

 

[Wizzington]

Welp, looks like i have to "retire" my copy of stellaris. I find federations unplayable. The fact that i HAVE to submit myself to the whims of the AI or play solo, and vulnerable, means the game will become unplayable, through my gaming standards. It's depressing they've gone this route.

You do not, though. You vote on everything, same as alliances.

 

[SolarGuy]

Glad to hear Alpine and Savannah worlds will get unique city graphics. I'm hoping Gaia worlds will get some too -- since right now they just use continental graphics.

I -think- the Gaia worlds already have their special background, it's just very similar to the Continental background.
What would be interesting though: If each city type would look a bit different (not just colour, but buildings too) depending on the planet it is on. But that would just be a tiny detail.

I'm probably going to be lynched for this, but why not change the effects of habitability on pops' happiness to the following:

actual happiness = (50% + happiness modifiers)  / 100% * habitability.

Thus, if a pop has 30% habitability on a planet, then it's new 'default' happiness will be only 15%. And +10% from whatever modifier will turn only into +3% actual happiness. Good luck with aggressive expansion without making sure that your pops can live well on that planet.

On the second thought, this seems to be a little too cruel. Perhaps, add additional 10% flat? So that pops still have 50% on the homeworld type worlds and 40% on the next tier?

Wow! The best suggestion ever!
Seriously though, are you serious? I mean, just about EVERY planet of your own planet type would have 40% happiness then. Which not only gives a production penalty, but also increases ethics divergence and happiness < 50% enables rebellions as well (at least slave rebellions... I think). So basically, every planet you colonise would be extremely likely to rebel due to the high ethics divergence and low happiness that would be there for no actual reason.
Expansion wouldn't be less easy, it would be impossible unless you heavily rely on ethics divergence lowering (and happiness increasing) builds. And such a change would make the Spiritualist ethoses (-10% / -30% ethics divergence) immensely powerful in comparison to other ethoses, as they could expand without a thousand rebellions. And pacifists (while at peace) or militarist (only slightly more when at war) would get better happiness too, which is even better than ethics divergence because it removes that production penalty on everything. Oh, and xenophiles could get some aliens on their planets for better happiness as well, but only if they manage to find another empire that wants to have migration treaties with them.

 

[FullMetalFox]

@Wiz
So, i guess this is a question all us modders are dying to know: When will the beta-patch be available so we can start adapting or mods?

 

[Bob_Herzog]

Well, there's still the option of our pops turning to genetic engineering by themselves and becoming Super-Species like now. The downside is that they usually have different traits than our species.

The always engineer themselfs to fit the biome they live on though. So thats good for both the expansionist and the happiness approach. The only slight problem is that you can get the -5% happiness since they are now considered a different species and you might not allow them leaders. But that is usually not an issue (or one you already have with other species in your empire anyway). They keep the base traits of your species though and just add some at random or lose a negative one. And they stay the same Ethos they were before (so unless you have a problem with Ethic Diversion ...). And unless you already altered them once before they still have points for planned genetic engineering left. So you can alter them again, if you wish.

So on the whole I can't see how some of your pops performing genetic engineering on themselfs could lead to a problem.

I'm probably going to be lynched for this, but why not change the effects of habitability on pops' happiness to the following:

actual happiness = (50% + happiness modifiers)  / 100% * habitability.

Thus, if a pop has 30% habitability on a planet, then it's new 'default' happiness will be only 15%. And +10% from whatever modifier will turn only into +3% actual happiness. Good luck with aggressive expansion without making sure that your pops can live well on that planet.

On the second thought, this seems to be a little too cruel. Perhaps, add additional 10% flat? So that pops still have 50% on the homeworld type worlds and 40% on the next tier?

To answer the question on the calculation:

(0.5 + 0.1) * 100 * 1 = 50 so if you want to exrpess it in numbers from 1 to 100 it is completly correct. I still disagree with how it is writen since even 80% planets then start at 40% which isn't that bad for the loss of yield but means combating ethic diversion right from the start. (0.5+0)*0.8 = 0.4 (or 40%) and even adding a level 5 gouveneur can't bring that back to 50%!

The only way a change like that would work would be reworking the effect happiness has on any given level. Likley make either 40% or somewhere between 40 and 50% the bas level and increase the bonus of each % bove since it won't be possible anylonger to reach very high levels (or add more stuff that can raise it). In the end it would result in a system with roughly the same values.

I think the change into three groups in addition to a significantly lower number of habitable planets should already be enough for those who really want to expand as part of their strategy to give habibility a second look.

 

[Strich]

Hey Wiz,
this patch shows, whats most awesome at Paradox: The will to change even important game features in a drastically way. You are simply not afraid, changing some core elements if you think they have to improve, instead of just tweaking it a little bit!

 

[grommile]

Welp, looks like i have to "retire" my copy of stellaris. I find federations unplayable. The fact that i HAVE to submit myself to the whims of the AI or play solo, and vulnerable, means the game will become unplayable, through my gaming standards. It's depressing they've gone this route.

The ability to invite other empires to join your wars without being formally allied to them will remain, so you don't have to play solo.

The ability to sign defensive pacts with other empires will remain, so you don't have to play vulnerable.

 

[ross-g]

Welp, looks like i have to "retire" my copy of stellaris. I find federations unplayable. The fact that i HAVE to submit myself to the whims of the AI or play solo, and vulnerable, means the game will become unplayable, through my gaming standards. It's depressing they've gone this route.

What do you feel you are going to miss from the current Alliance relationship, that you cannot obtain through diplomatic options/deals?
You can still have defensive and offensive partnerships, migration treaties, sensor links etc without being in a formal alliance. Being in an Alliance currently just means that those deals are not fixed length terms and actively prevents you from solo wars.

I can see why the headline "we've decided to retire alliances altogether" might be worrying, but I don't see how this will actually impact the game in any way.

 

[Melfice_Cyrum]

It's not a 40k reference.

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

I get that reference and it has me screaming internally.

 

[Koopatin]

While i like the idea of many, many different conditions on planets i also think it would be more complicate without a real benefit. That said i would just have more Modifiers on planets. 1-2 modifiers for each planet. Very wet, very dry, tidal locked and so on with different effects. This way you would still have the 3 groups of planets but a different feel to it. But to be honest, we do have that now on a few planets and do we really care that much? As you see.. i am torn apart ^^