Stellaris Dev Diary #89: 1.8 Post Release Support (part 2) | Page 4

Riftwalker · Oct 12, 2017

Benefactorist said:
Maybe it will work like colonization in Vicky 2 where you invest points into a system and xenophobes and etc will grant you points faster?
Then, if you've put in enough points into a system, you "own" it, and can begin building stations/colonizing planets/ claiming adjacent systems?

does this mean we'll get flash point wars?

@Wiz please say yes, please tell me wars can happen from natural stuff and isn't just "you got less fleet than me".

Jorlem · Oct 12, 2017

Wiz said:
There has been a couple of script issues reported in 1.8.2 related to Devouring Swarms, Exterminators and Purifiers (missing tooltips and opinion modifiers) that we are going to look at and likely publish a fix for, but other than that we feel like we have now addressed all important issues reported in 1.8 and 1.8.1 and so will be wrapping up 1.8 post-launch support if no other critical issues are found in the live build.

Evasive stance doesn't work now. It still keeps ships from entering a system with hostiles, but if turned on in a system with hostiles, or if hostiles enter the system where the ship is in, the "evasive" ship doesn't actually move, it just stutter-spins in a circle. I lost a bunch of scientists I had assisting research thanks to this, as they didn't actually try to leave the system when the enemy jumped in.

Riftwalker · Oct 12, 2017

Jorlem said:
Evasive stance doesn't work now. It still keeps ships from entering a system with hostiles, but if turned on in a system with hostiles, or if hostiles enter the system where the ship is in, the "evasive" ship doesn't actually move, it just stutter-spins in a circle. I lost a bunch of scientists I had assisting research thanks to this, as they didn't actually try to leave the system when the enemy jumped in.

they'll attempt to run to the closest planet with a station if set to evasive in a system with one.

arc2611 · Oct 12, 2017

Anyway, if I was going to rework border mechanics, here's how I would do it.

- Systems are the only real estate that matters right now, which doesn't really jive with how borders currently work. So rework real estate/borders to centre around claimed systems (as seems to have been done). Treat each system as a province equivalent or such.

- Newly established colonies (and at the start of your game, your homeworld) and frontier outposts always only start out controlling the system they're in. On the upside, if you've got a colony/outpost in a system, it's yours. You own it. However, over time, colonies and outposts can gradually grow their influence, claiming surrounding systems one system at a time, as long as you've visited the system at least once and there's no one else around to contest it, all the way up to a projection cap. If there's a particularly high value system that you want, you can pay a hefty influence cost to expedite the process and "buy out" that system. This mostly automates the process of growing your borders, but still lets players have some control over the direction of the process.

- Once you get to systems in contested regions, you can start to have a lot more fun and implement mechanics around border tension and such. Maybe something like V2's colonization system, except more automated to avoid micromanagement hell. Don't really have any concrete ideas here.

- Related to this, rework the wargoals system. Right now, the only way territory can change hands is by demanding colonies. Change the system so that in addition to being able to demand colonies, you're also able to demand claimed systems, so if you're not interested in a planet full of uppity xenophobes and just want mining rights to the 39 mineral system next door, you can do that. Have a system to automatically link them to your existing outposts/colonies, or some sort of decay so you're encouraged to build a frontier outpost in your newly gained territory to solidify your control as soon as possible. Have some simple cost multipliers based on whether there are any unsettled colonies in that system, the number of resources within the system, etc.

This would also help plug some holes in the wargoals system, i.e. the defender colonizing planets within the area the aggressor wants during wartime to deny them territory because you have to set your wargoals at the start.

EDIT: Some more refinements:
For claiming systems, have some sort of progress bar that gradually fills up until that system is claimed?. Think something like EU4 Centres of Reformation. For Frontier Outposts specifically I imagine their influence upkeep would be paid into this progress bar. Spending influence to expedite the process would be faster but less efficient.

This way Frontier Outposts nestled within your territory won't cost you any influence upkeep since they're no longer expanding your borders, so their cost benefit ratio becomes a lot more favourable in the mid-late game and it becomes feasible to maintain a lot of them, while still stopping players from just going nuts and spamming outposts until they run out of influence.

Jorlem · Oct 12, 2017

Riftwalker said:
they'll attempt to run to the closest planet with a station if set to evasive in a system with one.

If that is what it is doing, that's not helpful at all.

CrowScape · Oct 12, 2017

Judging by the border spread, the obvious conclusion is space amoeba FE confirmed!

corny.1234 · Oct 12, 2017

arc2611 said:
A change I would welcome.

Right now, we have circular blobs, elliptical blobs, and vaguely crescent shaped blobs. It's not a proper map painting game if you can't make an empire shaped like a giant middle finger, damnit!

We will miss you, perfectly round fallen empire

Garfazz Steamfang · Oct 12, 2017

Ultimuh said:
Shard? Could it be.. a silicoid-ish phenotype in the making?
Probably not, but.. *fingers crossed*

Glad to see i'm not the only one who want silicoids to spread in the galaxy. But seriously there isn't a silicoid teaser i think. Next expansion comming seams to be related to war, border and ships. Moreover we already had a story pack a month ago, the second will be not very soon...

Princess Stabbity · Oct 12, 2017

Wiz said:
There has been a couple of script issues reported in 1.8.2 related to Devouring Swarms, Exterminators and Purifiers (missing tooltips and opinion modifiers) that we are going to look at and likely publish a fix for, but other than that we feel like we have now addressed all important issues reported in 1.8 and 1.8.1 and so will be wrapping up 1.8 post-launch support if no other critical issues are found in the live build.

What about the issue with custom species based MI pops not growing despite being assigned the MACHINE archetype?

While there are event-driven workarounds (like switching the custom species' class to Machine) they're not ideal (causing invisible buildable pops to become available), and in effect it makes the archetype system only fully functional for biological species.

It would be lovely if it could be fixed on the game's end n_n A lot of modders were excited about adding more Machine and Synthetic Ascension portraits but this puts a big damper on our plans.

Matt516 · Oct 12, 2017

Jorlem said:
Evasive stance doesn't work now. It still keeps ships from entering a system with hostiles, but if turned on in a system with hostiles, or if hostiles enter the system where the ship is in, the "evasive" ship doesn't actually move, it just stutter-spins in a circle. I lost a bunch of scientists I had assisting research thanks to this, as they didn't actually try to leave the system when the enemy jumped in.

I'm not seeing this issue - I did a bunch of war last night and my evasive science ships immediately ran every time hostiles jumped into my systems. Are you running any AI mods?

Shoobs · Oct 12, 2017

Princess Stabbity said:
What about the issue with custom species based MI pops not growing despite being assigned the MACHINE archetype?

While there are event-driven workarounds (like switching the custom species' class to Machine) they're not ideal (causing invisible buildable pops to become available), and in effect it makes the archetype system only fully functional for biological species.

It would be lovely if it could be fixed on the game's end n_n A lot of modders were excited about adding more Machine and Synthetic Ascension portraits but this puts a big damper on our plans.

Already tried raising awareness on this. Eventually they will notice XD

VoodooDog · Oct 12, 2017

Wiz said:
View attachment 305759

i whish the boarders would actually look like that.
but you just colonize a planet and your boarder go around the 20 nearest systems...
that screenshot looks much better

Scourgeclaw · Oct 12, 2017

Not sure if this's been posted before but I'ma go for it anyway:

Wiz threw this onto his twitter earlier, not long after the dev diary; seems the outer color of the border is now your empire's Secondary color

Wiz: "Yep... nothing at all is different than before."

Edit: I didn't even see this until now but Science and Construction vessels now have system icons that match their roles- look at the ship icons in Soao and Procyon respectively.

Furthermore, the spaceport icon on Sol now seems to indicate the level by which the spaceport has been upgraded

razaron · Oct 12, 2017

Judging by his latest tweet, a single frontier outpost can claim multiple systems. There's only one frontier outpost (in Sol) in the image, with the level possibly determining how many systems it can claim.
Also, borders now use primary AND secondary empire colours.

Benefactorist · Oct 12, 2017

Looks like also the level of starports/spaceports is shown as well, or perhaps that's just showing that it's paused and not doing anything, interesting. No numbering on wormhole stations, though, and assuming a wormhole station in 'Sol' then those aren't shown if you have something else in the system with a hex-icon.

Dan_Daniel2000 · Oct 12, 2017

razaron said:
Judging by his latest tweet, a single frontier outpost can claim multiple systems. There's only one frontier outpost (in Sol) in the image, with the level possibly determining how many systems it can claim.
Also, borders now use primary AND secondary empire colours.

I think its more likely that the spaceport symbol is actually one of those new shipyard structures they teased. What is actually more interesting, is how he can have a wormhole ctation and see hyperlanes at the start of the game. Of course he could just used the all_tech command, but maybe this is a natural wormhole? They had ideas about that in the Design Corner after all.

Riftwalker · Oct 12, 2017

Scourgeclaw said:
Not sure if this's been posted before but I'ma go for it anyway:

Wiz threw this onto his twitter earlier, not long after the dev diary; seems the outer color of the border is now your empire's Secondary color

Wiz: "Yep... nothing at all is different than before."

Edit: I didn't even see this until now but Science and Construction vessels now have system icons that match their roles- look at the ship icons in Soao and Procyon respectively.

Furthermore, the spaceport icon on Sol now seems to indicate the level by which the spaceport has been upgraded

wow, i think it's true, that neutral stars have their own border projection. Holyshiet though, that's a good color combo.

edit: wait he's also got a construction ship outside his borders... yep looks like we build new frontier outposts...

Xephos Demonslayer · Oct 12, 2017

Hey Wiz. Really glad to be seeing some of this stuff. Fallen Empire rework confirmed? Besides that, I have an actual issue. I've been commenting this on several videos from Paradox Extra trying to get an answer, because it's really been bugging me. I was playing a generic, non special civic machine consciousness, and I conquered some robots that were doing mining for the organics who built them. There are two issues here, one's a bug, the otherconceptual. The bug is that the robots have my regular citizenship, Machine integration, (Assuming Direct Control made my day) which gives .50 consumer goods, but the robots alsohad the robot trait, which gave .50 consumer goods. This stacked, making these (arguably less advanced and cheaper) robots cost twice theconsumer goods as my (more advanced and likely more expensive to make) networked robots. The second part, was this: I was able to keep the robots, as in I COULD purge them, but wasn't forced to. I tried to robomod them, but encountered this conundrum: I COULD robomod them, but I can't really DO anything with them. I feel that there should be an option to either robomod the machine trait that the networked robots have on them or set non sapient robots built by organics to a special assimilation living standard (similar to that of the driven assimilators), so that I can add non networked robots and droids (and even non sapient synthetics) to my collective. Another idea I had is that they could only be robomodded into the intelligence after getting the Synthetic Age Ascension Perk, similar to how hive-minds can only assimilate other organics after biologically ascending. The AI uses robots at a VERY small scale (far smaller than I do at least, where I end up having a robot on every last mineral tile), so I don't feel this would be an abuse-able mechanic, instead it would just be an interesting facet of playing a machine intelligence in the early to mid game before AI gets fully researched. And from a lore point of view, I can totally see a machine intelligence going "Hey, these fleshbags made robots for us; so lets slap our software into these guys and get them to work." I'm not sure how assimilating sapient synthetics would work or if it could be done at all, but can you please add a way to assimilate non-sapient robots/droids/synths into a machine intelligence. If you took the time to read this, thanks for listening, even if nothing is done about it. I just wanted to bring this to your attention in case you missed it, as it seems to be a very specific scenario. In the mean time, I'm gonna enjoy 1.8.2 and assimilate everything. Maybe I can assimilate Blondie if you won't pamper him? He wouldn't have any individuality left with which to complain... or I could assimilate you... Whoever gives me all the info on the next big thing in the game first doesn't get assimlated. Bye guys!

Umega · Oct 12, 2017

I much prefer this kind of border system, if indeed borders will no longer be flowing and dynamic. Much better to have concise and cohesive borders.

Morak · Oct 12, 2017

I think the images indicate that Space Trump has build a boarder wall.

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