Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries
Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Stellaris 54248 Bug Reports 37667 Console edition 1312 Suggestions 21779 Tech Support 3217 Multiplayer 392 User Mods 4795 Stellaris AAR (After Action Reports)
Previous dev diary Next dev diary
Show only dev responses

Stellaris Dev Diary #94 - Ascension Perks & Surveying in Cherryh

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris dev diary. Today's topic was supposed to be ship balance and doomstacks, but because certain things weren't ready to show off yet, we're instead going to be doing a smaller dev diary talking about some changes coming to Ascension Perks and Surveying. We'll get back to the doomstack topic in a couple weeks.

Ascension Perks
Ascension Perks were added in Utopia as the paid component to the Tradition system to create a set of interesting choices for the player to take as they went through the Tradition tree, choosing between simple but powerful bonuses and more elaborate 'unlocks' such as the ascension paths and Megastructures. However, since then we have noticed that this is a system we keep wanting to build on (for example by adding unique Ascension Perks for Machine Empires as we did in Synthetic Dawn), and found the requirement to depend all of this on Utopia too limiting. For this reason, in the Cherryh update, we are going to make the basic Ascension Perks such as Mastery of Nature, Defender of the Galaxy and so on free for everyone. Biological/Psionic/Synthetic Ascension Paths and Megastructure Ascension Perks (including Habitats) will still require Utopia and Machine Empire Ascension Perks will naturally still require Synthetic Dawn (but not Utopia). The core system itself however, will become part of the base game, so everyone will be able to get at least the basic set of Ascension Perks even if they don't own a single piece of DLC.

Surveying & Communications Trading
The way surveying, anomaly generation and star chart trading works has never really worked very well. For one, it's very unclear to players that for example, you cannot discover anomalies in other empires' space, or that star chart trading can actually be a bad idea since it can in some cases stop you from finding anomalies in those systems. For this reason, we've decided to make some changes to the way surveying works. In Cherryh, any system inside the borders of an empire you have communications with will automatically be considered surveyed, without any need to send a science ship into it and waste a bunch of time scanning planets that have no chance of yielding anomalies aynway. There are some exceptions to this, such as Fallen Empires, whose space will need to be surveyed manually and can in fact yield anomalies.

As part of this we have decided to remove Star Chart trading as well as the ability to buy Star Charts from Curators, and instead replace this with the option to trade Communications with another empire - acquiring Communications from an empire in a trade deal will automatically put you in comms with any empires they have comms with that you do not. This should mean that there are no longer any 'traps' in surveying, while also requiring the need to explore every little nook of the galaxy even when that nook is held by your ally since a hundred years back.
2017_11_16_1.png


Terra Incognita Changes
Finally, I just wanted to mentioned that we have done some changes to Terra Incognita to make it more clear and make it work properly with bypasses (Wormholes and Gateways). Instead of Terra Incognita being based on which physical pixels on the map your ships have 'seen', it is now based on which systems are considered visited. Visited either means that you have been to the system with a ship, or that the system is inside the borders of an empire that you have communications with. As such, Terra Incognita no longer needs to be manually lifted on empires you have met in order to not make them appear grey and washed out on the map, also making it easier to see important galactic features such as nebulas.
2017_11_16_2.png


That's all for today! I know it was a short one, but don't worry, we still have a long way to go and plenty of major things to talk about for Cherryh. However, next week we're actually going to be talking about something that's§ unrelated to Cherryh, but exciting nonetheless. I'm not allowed to spoil what just yet, but stay tuned!
 
Sort by date Sort by reaction score
Tufy said:
Wiz, do yourself a favor and separate anomalies from surveys (like they are with precursors). You‘ll gain a lot more flexibility in the long run
Click to expand...

Use @Wiz to get his attention instead of just Wiz but otherwise I agree with this.
 
Risa said:
You can't (re-)survey an already surveyed system. I think that's obvious.
Click to expand...

I might actually prefer if all anomaly rolls were generated at start of game, then could be found if the researcher/ship/empire was skilled enough to reveal it.

Else having different "increasy anomaly generation" options you can pick ain't really worth the effort since by the time you get a chance to pick them you'll have like a dozen systems that ain't either already explored by you or owned by someone else..
 
I made a point of refusing star charts from other empires because of tradition that adds research points for each planet surveyed.

Question for the masses, does any actually waste an ascension perk on mastery of nature or the one that increases core planets by +5? even as a synthetic race where I can colonise any world type, it seems wasteful and could be better spent on a different perk.

Also, can the Synethetic Age perk please also have +1 trait pick? Given the list of traits available is substantially less than bio traits, there is not enough flexibility for the traits (ie if u dont pick enough that cost 2 points, trait points are wasted)
 
Nikolai II said:
I might actually prefer if all anomaly rolls were generated at start of game, then could be found if the researcher/ship/empire was skilled enough to reveal it.

Else having different "increasy anomaly generation" options you can pick ain't really worth the effort since by the time you get a chance to pick them you'll have like a dozen systems that ain't either already explored by you or owned by someone else..
Click to expand...

I agree. Anomalies should be generated at the beginning of the game. I'd prefer different tiers of anomalies that require better sensors, scientists, science modules, etc to discover. This would give you a reason to think about taking sensors earlier, the "meticulous" scientist, updated / upgraded science modules, etc.
 
KingAlamar said:
I agree. Anomalies should be generated at the beginning of the game. I'd prefer different tiers of anomalies that require better sensors, scientists, science modules, etc to discover. This would give you a reason to think about taking sensors earlier, the "meticulous" scientist, updated / upgraded science modules, etc.
Click to expand...

How would this work? Would you have to rescan all of your systems everytime you upgrade your sensors? Would you just be shit oit of luck if you scanned early game with low level scanners? This seems like it would add a ton of busy work for the chance of seeing a few popups. I would just prefer if they added some more mid-late game events/anomolies that can pop up randomly and be dealt with. Like the extra precursor events are right now.
 
ISitOnGnomes said:
How would this work? Would you have to rescan all of your systems everytime you upgrade your sensors?
Click to expand...

Maybe so. Or "recursive data analysis" could be a tech after the "automated exploration one" and automatically send your automated researchers to anomalies that have been scanned by you but not found (if the researcher in question will be able to find them).

Given how often I get "precursor thingy found" but nothing to research (presumably some kind of bug[?]), I'm not inclined to hope that will give me any mid-game content. So it would seem easier to extend some of the early game content and make it last longer.
 
Nikolai II said:
Given how often I get "precursor thingy found" but nothing to research (presumably some kind of bug[?]), I'm not inclined to hope that will give me any mid-game content. So it would seem easier to extend some of the early game content and make it last longer.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the system isnt too clear. It actually spawns an anomoly somewhere in your space that you then need to find and send a scientist to. Since its a normal anomoly and not a research project it wont show up in your log to find easily.

It would be nice if these just showed up straight to the log, just to make finding them easier.
 
I'm sorry but I haven't time to read the whole thread now, so I will ask question. It's stupid question but why red empire have green borders? Maybe you could use more darker version of empire's territory color for borders and brighter version for territory? (For example dark red borders and red territory, or opposite). I mean use regular and more saturated version of the same color for each empire. Yes, I know, it's only a map and who cares and so on, but my inner perfectionist is suffering.
 
Wiz said:
That's all for today! I know it was a short one, but don't worry, we still have a long way to go and plenty of major things to talk about for Cherryh. However, next week we're actually going to be talking about something that's§ unrelated to Cherryh, but exciting nonetheless. I'm not allowed to spoil what just yet, but stay tuned!
Click to expand...

I'm disappointed in the forum that no mad theories started about this. What is Stellaris related, but not linked to the next patch?
 
I don't have much to say bout what was said here except thank you paradox. I never liked that the unity system was a DLC. I felt like I had to pay just to get balanced tall empires. but now that your making some of it free i'd like to thank you for allowing everyone to have the balance unity adds.
 
I support the idea of separating anomaly generation from planetary info gathering, primarily because all info gathering tools (events with set_surveyed effect, federation data sharing, etc) interfere with anomaly system.
 
Mastah Jedi said:
I did not say I did. However, such recklessness and disregard for paying customers, makes me question their integrity as a company.
Click to expand...
Most of the ascension (and vital ones I would say) are still exclusive. And in exchange for that, Cherryh update is free, which seems like a major update (Stellaris 2.0). I'd say that's an understandable trade-off. If the devs decide to give away all of Utopia DLC's feature for free, you have my permission to be angry. This is like less than a fraction of its feature becoming free. How anyone can be stingy as hell over few generic feature and compare this development team to an out of touch company like EA is beyond me.
 
It's all good and fine, but i need MORE exploration in this game, not less. It is one of the best parts of the game and what initially make Stellaris stand out of sea of copypasta 4X games. Please make next patch and DLC about exploring the universe, and add content to it in middle and lath phase of the game too.
 
Vanhal said:
It's all good and fine, but i need MORE exploration in this game, not less. It is one of the best parts of the game and what initially make Stellaris stand out of sea of copypasta 4X games. Please make next patch and DLC about exploring the universe, and add content to it in middle and lath phase of the game too.
Click to expand...

I had an idea that maybe scientists set to assist research could occasionally find new anomalies within your space to explore. This would solve two problems at once. There would still be mysteries to discover throughout the game, and anomaly discovery chance would never become useless.

This would also allow late game anomalies to be added to the game. These might require certain techs or perks before they could appear.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back