Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Now that the 1.7.2 update is out, we can officially start talking about the next update, which has been named 1.8 'Čapek'. This update will include the reworked AI crisis and other changes to crises outlined in Dev Diary #72. More information will be forthcoming in future dev diaries on the exact nature and release date of 1.8, but for today we'll be going over some changes and improvements to Habitability and Terraforming coming in 1.8.

Habitability Changes
Ever since the changes to the habitable planet classes and habitability back in Heinlein we have continued to discuss habitability, and in particular, the frequency of habitable worlds in the galaxy. A general feeling among the designers has been that habitable planets are too common and do not feel special enough, but that reducing the base number of habitable worlds wasn't really feasible while most empires only had access to colonizing a third of them at the start. We also felt that the sheer abundance of habitable worlds that become available to you when you do achieve the ability to colonize/terraform other climate types also meant that there is little pressure to expand your borders - not when you can triple your planet count simply by utilizing the planets already inside your borders.

For this reason we've decided to make a number of fundamental changes to habitability. First of all, the habitability at which Pops can live on a planet was reduced from 40% to 20%, meaning that by default, most species will be able to colonize most habitable worlds in the galaxy from the very start. We have also changed the actual effects of habitability: Rather than acting as a cap on happiness, it now acts as a modifier on it (in addition to affecting growth, as before), with each 10 points of habitability below 100% reducing happiness by 2.5% (so at the base 20% habitability, a Pop would get -20% to their happiness). This means that while low-habitability planets are possible to colonize, it may not be a good idea to do so unless you have ways to compensate for the negative effects of low habitability.

With these changes, we have cut the base number of habitable worlds in the galaxy in half. For those that prefer to play with more (or even fewer!) habitable worlds, there is of course the habitable worlds slider in galaxy setup as before. Overall, the changes should result in habitable worlds and terraforming candidates feeling like more significant finds in the early game, and contribute to mid and late game friction as empires run out of worlds to colonize inside their borders.


Planetary Deposits
Along with the change to habitability, we have also changed the way resource deposits are generated on habitable worlds. Rather than all habitable worlds having the exact same chance to generate the different kind of resource deposits, we have now broken it up a bit by climate as follows:

Wet Climate planets (Continental, Ocean, Tropical) are more likely to generate food and society research deposits.
Frozen Climate planets (Arctic, Tundra, Alpine) are more likely to generate mineral and engineering research deposits.
Dry Climate planets (Desert, Arid, Savanna) are more likely to generate energy and physics research deposits.
Gaia planets are more likely to generate mixed deposits and strategic resources.

Of course, this does not mean that you will *only* find those types of desposits on such planets - it simply means they are more likely to be found there.

Terraforming Interface Improvements
Also coming in 1.8 are a couple changes to improve Terraforming and Terraforming Candidates. First of all, we've introduced a concept called 'significant planetary modifiers'. This is a flag (accessible to modders) that can be set on any planetary modifier, and will result in that planet appearing in the Expansion Planner even if it not of a habitable planet class. For now, the only significant modifier is Terraforming Candidates (such as Mars), so you should no longer find a Terraforming Candidate only to forget which system it is located in, but we expect to make more use of this functionality in the future.

We also spent some time cleaning up the Terraforming interface in general, hiding the button for planets where it is never applicable (such as non-Terraforming Candidate barren worlds) and improving the sorting and style of the actual terraforming window.

That's all for now! Next week we'll be talking about some significant changes coming in the area of genetic modification.

 

[208]

@Wiz I am concerned about this planet tile change. As somebody already said: you go militarist to spam ships = you want as much minerals as possible so you HAVE TO go for frozen climate by default? This is a bit strange to me tbh.

Geography is destiny.

Can we have sand worms on Desert Planet?

Can there be hostile lifeforms in the Planet, that youd need to kill first?

Please

These exist already.

A variety of "dangerous wildlife" pictures (including sand-worms) would be nice though!

This is the only part I don't like. As others have said already, this is bound to push empires with certain planet preference into certain directions.

With a frozen homeworld (and therefore, your initial colonies all being like that too) you are going to have more minerals than others. Thus enabling you to build more ships (especially with Naked Corvettes), as well as more buildings that give you even more minerals. And you get ship techs earlier than anyone else too. This seems like the standard example of snowballing, and I'm sure "take frozen worlds" would turn into the optimal minmaxing strategy.

Hopefully as part of other work in 1.8, things like mineral income being overly dominant will be addressed, and make "pushing empires in certain directions" a more interesting choice between equally viable focuses (food/energy/minerals). Let's not forget that these changes aren't taking place in a vacuum; we're just only seeing a small portion of them at once in this diary.

 

[GenericUser]

What i'd like the most is a list of available names when naming speicies and planets rather than randomizer that we have now.

 

[KopiG]

Geography is destiny.

I have no clue what this means

 

[Mavkiel]

To soon to say how it will shake out. Depends on how bad the negatives are, and what tools are given to combat them. It will certainly be a buff for people that can use robots, and I am uncertain if materialists really needed that.

 

[208]

I have no clue what this means

It's a famous quote supposedly from Napoleon (who then promptly invaded Russia, as the story goes...), meaning that the fate of nations is intimately tied to their geography.

My meaning is that having space empires nudged in particular directions based on their choice of home worlds is not a problem in and of itself - in fact I think it's interesting. (It IS a problem, though, if one of those home world options/directions is clearly superior.)

 

[KopiG]

@208 Thank you for explaining, also I gave it a thought. Why shouldnt you specialize as a militarist with cold worlds. You are right, its just that they need to be balanced thats all, but otherwise its a nice flavor and a strategic decision where you want to further specialize your species. I like this change very much so.

 

[Yves Santos]

Alright. But what would the Kardashev scale do in this game? Why would the game be better if you introduced it? Is it just a measure? Now you're at I, then you're at II, and then you never reach III.

well,the Level III of Kardashev Scale is basically taking whole Galaxy's Energy Source,almost something like to Galaxy conquest

 

[DutchTheGuy]

I have not read all 17 pages, so I don't know if these concerns have been voiced already.

I am however extremely worried by the "halved number of habitable planets" change. In theory it's a neutral change because it affects everyone, but it's not really so. Not when a fallen empire awakens, and you have half the fleet cap as you had before because you have half the worlds you had before. Say hello to the 1 million fleet strength doomstack.

Theoretically this could be adjusted, but until it has been done I will be worried about this.

If you really need to you could always set it to 2x for the ''normal'' amount back.

 

[Peko?]

well,the Level III of Kardashev Scale is basically taking whole Galaxy's Energy Source,almost something like to Galaxy conquest

But it could only be accomplished long after you've won, and - even worse - long after there's anything interesting left to do in the game (and I wouldn't expect that to change, the game will never be interesting for so long that you could essentially build a Dyson Sphere around every star).

 

[Rafss]

I know this has little to do with the dev diary but since we're talking about planetary changes...

When I think about the "clearing" of an hostile wildlife blocker, I imagine trucks pushing animals around 'til death.
I know I'm imagining it "wrong", but these blockers feel too simple, too generic. In the sci-fi culture, there are so many dangerous alien creatures, yet in Stellaris they are a mere blocker you get rid of in a click, after a few months of research, which is just another click before that. The only thing you have to worry about are spacebornes. So living in a planet makes the creature insignificant? Only Titans are dangerous? And you gotta piss them off first?
We could change each climate to have a different hostile wildlife portrait, yeah that would feel more unique, but there are other ways to improve the experience. There could be planets where hostile wildlife is so powerful you need an army to clear it, just like the Titan's event bad outcome. They could be there before you colonize, so that you must land troops and clear it, and we could have it most (or only) for resource rich planets, just like the many nice things in the game that are guarded by some hostile being.
We could have different kinds of infested planets too, like one covered in dangerous hives you must bomb the structures before landing troops and killing creatures.
I'm sure the combat system will be overhauled, so some kind of fight before colonizing a planet will be even more interesting.

 

[Artaios Greybark]

I have not read all 17 pages, so I don't know if these concerns have been voiced already.

I am however extremely worried by the "halved number of habitable planets" change. In theory it's a neutral change because it affects everyone, but it's not really so. Not when a fallen empire awakens, and you have half the fleet cap as you had before because you have half the worlds you had before. Say hello to the 1 million fleet strength doomstack.

Theoretically this could be adjusted, but until it has been done I will be worried about this.

They EXPLICITLY stated that you still adjust the number of inhabitable planets via the slider. Read please before stating your worries and spreading negativity.

 

[FlyingPhoenix]

They EXPLICITLY stated that you still adjust the number of inhabitable planets via the slider. Read please before stating your worries and spreading negativity.

This doesn't address the worry.

 

[Keltosh]

They EXPLICITLY stated that you still adjust the number of inhabitable planets via the slider. Read please before stating your worries and spreading negativity.

You do understand, right, that a lot of the players ( and among them, 80% of the casual ones?) don't really adjust sliders? They just play with the average settings, trusting that the developers provided them with optimal starting settings for a balanced experience.

If the various crisis and fallen empires are not scaled by default to half of what they are right now, to compensate for the fact that you will have half of the fleet capacity you have now, can you imagine what is going to happen?
Oh, how happy are those players going to be, when they get raped by an awakened empire or an end game crisis because they did not realize they would have half the firepower they had before!

THAT is the main point of worry for me.

 

[melaw]

Slightly worried that everyone will take arctic preference to get more minerals.
While I love the idea that every second planet comes with a random natural emphasis towards one tile type,
I feel it should not be something which can be exploited.
"Oh there is a mineral heavy planet, I grab this one" YES but "I make all my species prefer winter cuz minerals" NO

 

[runrun]

Something being posted in a dev diary doesn't mean it's higher priority than anything coming in dev diaries after it. Combat balancing is a major priority but it's also a huge, ongoing undertaking and isn't something we're gonna throw together in a week and then be ready to post about. We're working on it, and we'll talk about it when we're ready to talk about it. Please keep this thread on topic, there's at least a dozen other threads to discuss combat balance in.

Sorry if I was a bit brash there. Every single dev diary there's always several posters who rush to exclaim their disappointment that the dev diary isn't actually about something else, and it gets a bit tiresome.

You could make a small list at the end of the DD on the major works on which you work in priority. That would reduce I think what kind of response: oh! It doesn t work and they don t care!
(You will tell me there will always be one to complain about what there isn t indicate.)



I think this is a very good improvement.

This should change a lot of balance and mechanics of the game.
Here are the first ideas that come to my mind

Is it only bonuses on tiles or planetary bonuses?
if it s planetary bonuses
- the functioning of the sectors:
Will the planets be developed according to their strengths? (Even within the same sector)
Will there be an option: to develop the planets according to their assets?

Do the planets keep their bonus after being terraformed?
Or an arid planet with a mineral bonus will lose there bonuses to win that of its new climate?
(edit : For the question of balance between genetic modification and terraforming. Transcendence could become obsolete)

(Note: why does the area construct the autochthon monument always on the bonus place next to the planetary building?)

(Note 2: there is a bonus building for energy and minerals. Will there be an "granary" for food?)

- will the frontiers be more extended? The cost of frontier posts reduced?

- the stack of the fleet is divided by 2. Therefore a better playability in the late game.

With an economy twice less important. the cost of megastructures become twice more expensive for a utility still to be demonstrated due to lack of time. I could tell you about my games where I colonize only to keep my empire unified and conquer the half of the galaxy by undergoing a war every 10 years without making war offenssives and without selecting war scores

 

[palfadocs]

I don't know if someone has allready asked, but the habitability rework seems like an indirect buff to the hivemind (plus not “having“ to take the extremly adaptive trait), so I guess my question is: will the penalty to growth be increased?

 

[Michaelp]

I'd love to have sectors build there own defensive fleet,provided I could have some input into that fleet's composition,as the AI has been known to make some strange decisions at times. In my current game,the sector I have produces more minerals than I do,so if I could get them to do something worthwhile with that,once they are done with the planets I have given them..

 

[Shaftoe]

What's about mid-game empire ship prefix change and color/emblem change? This isn't implemented yet.

 

[Trokkin]

If earlier one adaptive hive mind settled everything he needed and don't really care about what happened on that planets, now it can grant free 2 points because of non-adaptive trait that could be spent to something else like industrious and very strong, turning HM a pretty good choice for unstoppable machine of death, considering Devouring Swarm should be picked for it's bonuses.
Still happiness penalty isn't scary at all, so probably everyone will do colony rush, as many had mentioned. It should probably do something else than decrease happiness.
I guess something like straight productivity penalty? Think it's pretty hard to establish mining colony in arctic or desert world but science labs would be there pretty easily.

Planet types could all be different, like, if Continental had food/society, Tropical had food/engineering, Arctic had minerals/physics and Savannah had energy/society and so on. Planet-type unique resources is also a great idea.
I also think you should decrease farm's food output, so farming would be really hard at start without green planets or without farm techs. As for 1.6.2 I felt that technology advancement is really something not important, so I'd wanted to see some changes making higher tier techs more important. Probably I'd wanted to see shift from colony/corvette rush everywhere to some kind of balance between aggressive rushing of wide empires and technology advances of tall empires, for player to choice between. Technology for terraforming to increase planet size?
And genetic ascension felt like something empty to me, since the only thing you get from it is pop modification, without any benefits genetic modification could provide or already provides to humanity: possible tougher armor, higher food output, usage of food as minerals? Or ships as completely living creatures, like something that the Scrouge has, or even something closer to Zerg Swarm from SCII. Can't wait for tomorrow's DD.

 

[Adamsrealm]

Climate based recourse generation is a really unbalanced idea. It clearly makes certain starting climates better than others.