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Stellaris Dev Diary #84: Čapek Feature Roundup (part 2)

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary is a continuation of the feature round-up in the 1.8 'Čapek' update that we started in last week's dev diary. In this one, we'll be talking about some new policies being added to the game. Everything mentioned in this dev diary is part of the free update.

Land Appropriation
The first new policy added is called 'Land Appropriation'. This policy is available to all ethics and governs whether or not newly conquered planets should have land appropriated from non-citizen species. If this policy is on, any newly conquered planet with less than 5 tiles of unblocked free space will have some non-citizen pops removed to clear way for citizen pops. These pops are either simply removed outright (simulating being driven into slums and fringe regions) or become refugees that will attempt to flee to an empire that will have them. Additionally, any planet that has land seized will get a temporary 'Land Appropriated' modifier that massively increases migration attraction and prevents non-citizen species from reproducing and migrating there while in effect. Non-multispecies AI empires will make use of this policy, meaning that even regular wars of conquest will generate refugees, indirectly boosting refugee haven empires.
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Pre-Sapient Policies
The policies for Pre-Sapients (previously Pre-Sentients, we have changed the Sentient/Sapient terminology in 1.8) have been expanded in 1.8. The following policies are now available for choosing how to deal with pre-sapients:
* Extermination: Pre-Sapients are quickly and efficiently exterminated to make room for your Pops.
* Livestock: Pre-Sapients are hunted and eaten, producing food for your empire, though this will slowly deplete their population. They can also be manually purged at will. Depletion is mostly done for balance reasons, as otherwise there would be no reason *not* to eat them.
* Tolerated: Pre-Sapients are tolerated and will generally not be interfered with, though they can be manually purged or killed off via terraforming.
* Protected: Pre-Sapients are protected from purging and worlds they are living on cannot be terraformed.
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Initial Border Status
A new policy has been added that controls the initial border status you have towards other empires: open or closed. This only affects the status of borders after establishing communications and has no effect on empires you have not contacted. It also does not prevent manual opening or closing of borders towards select empires.
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Robotic Workers
The last new policy ties into the changes to artificial intelligence policies discussed in dev diary 78 and is simply a blanket policy for whether robotic workers should be permitted to be built and maintained. If banned, all robot pops in your empire will automatically be disassembled.
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Manual Purging
Finally for today, also as a result of feedback given after dev diary 78, we have brought back the manual Purge button for organic pops as well, though its use is highly restricted. You can manually purge selective Pops only if they are Slaves, non-protected Pre-Sapients, or robotic Pops without citizen rights. The rules for which Pops can be Purged/Disassembled are fully moddable.
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That's all for today! Next week we'll continue the feature roundup by talking about changes to Ascension Paths and Megastructures and the addition of Awakened Empire Decadence.
 
I do not like the philosophy of the dev diaries. we now have announced changes, updates and fixes for stellaris, that were announced three months ago, that are still not in the live game. I would much rather be kept in the dark about dev progress, than have to see common-sense changes being put into builds that I cannot even have in my live games until months and months later.
 
I do not like the philosophy of the dev diaries. we now have announced changes, updates and fixes for stellaris, that were announced three months ago, that are still not in the live game. I would much rather be kept in the dark about dev progress, than have to see common-sense changes being put into builds that I cannot even have in my live games until months and months later.
If you want to be kept in the dark about dev progress, just don't read the dev diaries then.
 
Happy to see you have implemented my suggestion Borders policy - open / closed. Finaly, the dude (I forget his name) was wrong, you're not in the vacuum.
 
Personally, I always viewed the pause button in Stellaris (or CK2, or EU4, etc.) as Paradox' equivalent of the "End Turn" button in other grand strategy times. It's just that here you define how long a turn lasts by yourself, and everyone acts simultaneously.

Though usually it's a crutch and slowing down to normal speed is enough to carry out an action. I'm not enough of a minmaxer to care about losing 2-3 days.
And you could even justify it as saying the time lost is the price of bureaucracy :p
 
do you know another studio that gives you patch note tidbits 3+ months before they actually go live? what is the point? to just delude the forum nutjobs into thinking its a cooperative process where wiz cares about your design ideas?
First, yeah, because they do care.
Second, the point is to show what they are working on. Either bugfixes or new features. You might not care, and that's fine, but I think the vast majority of the forum users, myself included, are quite satisfied. It shows that they are actually working on Stellaris. And that's a very good thing. It builds hype. It shows that annoying stuff is removed / fixed.
It helps you see how the game is getting better. Week by week. Piece by piece.
They could stay silent for months, while we are screaming for bugfixes and new features, and finally get disappointed or confused when the patch goes live. But they don't. And thus we don't.
 
do you know another studio that gives you patch note tidbits 3+ months before they actually go live? what is the point? to just delude the forum nutjobs into thinking its a cooperative process where wiz cares about your design ideas?

I know many games that offer sneak-peaks at coming content, though most of those are MMOs.
 
do you know another studio that gives you patch note tidbits 3+ months before they actually go live? what is the point? to just delude the forum nutjobs into thinking its a cooperative process where wiz cares about your design ideas?

Some do ... if you hang around in the right places. Especially smaller/indie studios. Generally I don't care about that crap, but I lile PDX games enough to read about them from this perspective.
 
I do not like the philosophy of the dev diaries. we now have announced changes, updates and fixes for stellaris, that were announced three months ago, that are still not in the live game. I would much rather be kept in the dark about dev progress, than have to see common-sense changes being put into builds that I cannot even have in my live games until months and months later.

We're going to continue to update our players on our development process, I'm afraid. You're of course free to dislike it but I can only suggest not reading teasers and dev diaries if so.
 
I must say, I am having difficulty understanding why there is not even a release date yet. All major features seem to already exist, surely you can tell us what month or 2 weeks it will be released in. A lot of players including myself are frustrated and have lost interest in stellaris until the update. Everytime I want to play a game I always think "but in the next update it will be so much better" or "what is the point playing materialists if I dont have the robot skins yet."

Stellaris is one of my favourite games of all time, however I can serously not emphasize with leaving everyone in the dark as we have no idea if it will be released soon, or like in December.
 
We haven't seen anything related to the contingency so no clue how developed that this. Also, I imagine after 1.6 they are making sure it is tested enough to not have a repeat.
 
I must say, I am having difficulty understanding why there is not even a release date yet. All major features seem to already exist, surely you can tell us what month or 2 weeks it will be released in. A lot of players including myself are frustrated and have lost interest in stellaris until the update. Everytime I want to play a game I always think "but in the next update it will be so much better" or "what is the point playing materialists if I dont have the robot skins yet."

Stellaris is one of my favourite games of all time, however I can serously not emphasize with leaving everyone in the dark as we have no idea if it will be released soon, or like in December.
You want another 1.6 to happen ? Because that's how you get another 1.6 to happen
 
Stellaris is one of my favourite games of all time, however I can serously not emphasize with leaving everyone in the dark as we have no idea if it will be released soon, or like in December.

I still advocate for an open beta, at least of the patch component of 1.8 - if not of the paid content as well.
 
I must say, I am having difficulty understanding why there is not even a release date yet. All major features seem to already exist, surely you can tell us what month or 2 weeks it will be released in. A lot of players including myself are frustrated and have lost interest in stellaris until the update. Everytime I want to play a game I always think "but in the next update it will be so much better" or "what is the point playing materialists if I dont have the robot skins yet."

Stellaris is one of my favourite games of all time, however I can serously not emphasize with leaving everyone in the dark as we have no idea if it will be released soon, or like in December.
QA evalutation process man, today they find 2 bugs, maybe tomorrow they find 40, and if you already have a release date, or you delay it, or you release the patch ´with the bugs
 
I spelled out the reason in the OP. There would be zero reason to use Tolerated instead of Livestock if it had no downsides.

Can't you make it comparable to what it is in reality? Our meat/cattle industry is a big polluter. You can easily make it damage planet quality and incur happiness/other costs. Common sense things that don't break the suspension of disbelief.
 
I sorta feel that you should be able to eat aliens when only you have a trait that allows it. Something like "predator" or "xenophage". Otherwise this shouldn't be possible, either because your cultural norms don't allow this, or because your species physique is unfitting for this purpose.
 
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And you could even justify it as saying the time lost is the price of bureaucracy :p
Beat me too it, was gonna say it (somewhat) models bureaucratic inefficiency and red tape.
 
As always, im amazed by the capacity of ppl in this forum to justify every game feature.

So, its usual for the controlling entity in a large state to not be able to delegate authority? What does this model?

No need to answer. I wont.
 
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