Stellaris Dev Diary #322 - 3.10.0 “Pyxis” Custodian Features

[Beauty Nova]

i would love to see an overhaul to ethics and factions. Most likely - each ethic pairs should have their faction.

Aren't all the factions tied to an ethic anyway? I could see adding a second faction to all the ones that are missing one though, right now only egalitarian and xenophobe have more than one.

 

[Calvax]

i would love to see an overhaul to ethics and factions. Most likely - each ethic pairs should have their faction.

I'd love to see situational factions added like in crusader kings. E.g. The Blorg Liberation Front forms as an independence faction if you've conquered Blorg territory and you have to keep its faction strength under a certain level or you get a rebellion.

 

[mrt1212]

I'd love to see situational factions added like in crusader kings. E.g. The Blorg Liberation Front forms as an independence faction if you've conquered Blorg territory and you have to keep its faction strength under a certain level or you get a rebellion.

Exactly - and part of me thinks if they need ethical alignments, its gonna be one vestigial ethic and one spiteful opposite ethic.

 

[Revengeance_oov]

I'd love to see situational factions added like in crusader kings. E.g. The Blorg Liberation Front forms as an independence faction if you've conquered Blorg territory and you have to keep its faction strength under a certain level or you get a rebellion.

IMO this is how faction approval should've always worked. Instead of getting approval for having fairly static policies, give a situation where a given faction demands a policy change ("Xenophobes demand purge of Repugnant species X!") and then give temporary faction approval and ethic attraction depending on how it was resolved.

 

[Archael90]

Aren't all the factions tied to an ethic anyway? I could see adding a second faction to all the ones that are missing one though, right now only egalitarian and xenophobe have more than one.

i have said - each ethic pair, not each ethic.
What i mean by that:
materialist-pacifist
materialist-militarist
materialist-egalitarian
materialist-authoritarian
materialist-xenophile
materialist-xenophobe
pacifist-spiritualist
pacifist-egalitarian
pacifist-authoritarian
pacifist-xenophile
pacifist-xenophobe
militarist-spiritualist
militarist-egalitarian
militarist-authoritarian
militarist-xenophile
militarist-xenophobe
egalitarian-spiritualist
egalitarian-xenophile
egalitarian-xenophobe
authoritarian-spiritualist
authoritarian-xenophile
authoritarian-xenophobe
xenophile-spiritualist
xenophobe-spiritualist
so 24 factions in total
and all should be able to spawn.
highest ethic attraction should reduce this number to 6, and pleasing them would not be as easy as now.

 

[Calvax]

IMO this is how faction approval should've always worked. Instead of getting approval for having fairly static policies, give a situation where a given faction demands a policy change ("Xenophobes demand purge of Repugnant species X!") and then give temporary faction approval and ethic attraction depending on how it was resolved.

Both would be good. It makes sense there are some policies that they'd want as standard, but also would respond dynamically to what you do and to events in the wider galaxy.

 

[-Marauder-]

I appreciate getting dinged with negative trait on leaders forcing a value consideration I would otherwise not ever make until the leader died, but I also dont oversteep myself in leaders to avoid my playthrough going sideways if one dies, or gets negatrait. Keep up the good work Devs, and maybe sprinkle a little more RNG in, like mishaps involving carriages, games of chess against death itself, etc etc.

"I enjoy RNG screwing me." That's great, most do not. Because RNG completely outside ones control in a game that's based mostly on logic, planning, and decision making isn't enjoyable to many.

 

[mrt1212]

"I enjoy RNG screwing me." That's great, most do not. Because RNG completely outside ones control in a game that's based mostly on logic, planning, and decision making isn't enjoyable to many.

Yeah, your cohort is why we cant have more interesting espionage.

 

[Beauty Nova]

Yeah, your cohort is why we cant have more interesting espionage.

But espionage would be other empires screwing you, in ways you can theoretically defend against with better encryption. You can't just spec for better RNG rolls.

 

[mrt1212]

But espionage would be other empires screwing you, in ways you can theoretically defend against with better encryption. You can't just spec for better RNG rolls.

The reason that active attack espionage is like releasing jar of flies into an empty gym is because in a reciprocal system with teeth, if a mission can get through despite passive defense measures at their most, it will feel like an 'out of my control and unfun things happening to me' experience to that cohort, and sure enough I would put 1000ECs down on a future rant about 'doing everything right and this out of my control unfun thing is bad game design' the first time the AI pulls a hotfoot on them. And some of us would say 'thats how the cookie crumbles' and the void loop is intact.

I got some jokes about this but dont wanna catch another vacation, heh heh heh.

 

[WordyBird]

I'd love to see situational factions added like in crusader kings. E.g. The Blorg Liberation Front forms as an independence faction if you've conquered Blorg territory and you have to keep its faction strength under a certain level or you get a rebellion.

Honestly, that'd be fantastic! You could hypothetically do a lot even with the current factions combined with the current Situation system. Like, say, a plot to assassinate a sector governor is leaked because the sector's pops are overwhelmingly of a different species in the Xenophobe faction, or a sector governed by an Authoritarian ethic governor with overwhelmingly Authoritarian faction pops forms a cult of personality. Stability hits, mass crime waves, rebellions, declarations of independence in the worst-case scenario. Would necessitate more interesting tools and dynamic actions to interact with factions, but that'd be lovely to see in the Forever Someday internal politics update.

 

[Seridor]

Factions could get some more toughts.
In some games they are like no factor: I play a pacifist xenophile, everyone is happy. In my current game I play the payback scenario with the stock race on high difficulties and my factions (militaristic, xenophobe) are unhappy.. I should rival, wage war, vassal, not hire paragon leaders (xenophobic) etc etc. Most of the demands are impossible, at least in the early game.
What I tought of: factions should be more difficult to please in some cases, but there should be some other ways to do it. gifts, missions etc.
Factions could have seats on different colonies
conquered civs should/could form their own faction unless they are oppressed (but then still prone to revolt)

 

[Lenk]

This is the single best suggestion for addressing admiral shortage I think I've seen. Specialized fleets could still have their own admiral, but being able to have a "grand admiral" who can boost an entire fleet-of-fleets makes a lot of sense, given the way Stellaris fleet limit works and the sizes that navies get to in the late game.

The one thing I'd add is: maybe make it so that a "grand admiral" needs to be on a flagship of some kind? That is, you only get this aura-like bonus if the command fleet has either a Titan or is a Juggernaut (yes, let us assign admirals to juggernauts already!). Admittedly that would probably need to be re-worked for people who don't have the relevant DLCs, but that's easy enough, lots of stuff (like Psionic techs) already works that way.

I like the idea but also thought about eager being reworked as a leader system. Like like there are full on leaders but also "acting commanding officer" leaders. So when a new fleet is made instead of blank slot, there is an acting commander whose not really a leader, but if they make it level 4 you can get option to recruit them but until then you cannot choose their traits. Or for the sake of filling the slot just have a portrait there with a name being a fake leader until a leader is actually assigned to take command. Gives the feel of a Grand admiral or personal hand of the emperor/president directed control over an area.

 

[-Marauder-]

Yeah, your cohort is why we cant have more interesting espionage.

Fairly sure espionage in virtually every game ever is either OP or UP with basically nothing in between. Even then it's not related to things outside of player control and RNG so much as having no counter play. If you want more RNG play Russian roulette, if you want an espionage system with no counter play where others can screw you have someone else play Russian roulette for you.

 

[mrt1212]

Fairly sure espionage in virtually every game ever is either OP or UP with basically nothing in between. Even then it's not related to things outside of player control and RNG so much as having no counter play. If you want more RNG play Russian roulette, if you want an espionage system with no counter play where others can screw you have someone else play Russian roulette for you.

Pretty funny stuff coming from someone who is gonna keep buying DLC for a game that randomly spites them with RNG, when there are free word processors and spreadsheet programs that would satisfy full narrative control and solving optimization problems seemingly better than any PDX game.

 

[DurianKing]

RNG BS suddenly nuking a good leader and imposing big penalties on the Empire are not interactive, fun, or in any way enjoyable. Given this is a game and the choice to introduce these traits has been made deliberately it's "not just the way the cookie crumbles". Some negative traits are merely annoying, such as embezzling, others such as increase to Empire size and the likes are absolutely back breaking.

All of this in the end adds NOTHING to make the game more fun or enjoyable, it's an all around unenjoyable and horrid experience for this to occur. And the question has to be made why it even happens/is in game in the first place. There's no challenge, no play around beyond trashing the leader immediately, nothing one can do about it. Making this worse by removing negative trait modifier reductions because people have become to find them mandatory does NOT improve the game in any way, it merely forces a bad design decision down their throat by force.

Good morning! I find this interactive, fun, and enjoyable ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Having all your leaders be 'practically perfect in every way' is some Mary Poppins-level stuff. To each their own, though.

"I enjoy RNG screwing me." That's great, most do not. Because RNG completely outside ones control in a game that's based mostly on logic, planning, and decision making isn't enjoyable to many.

A game where nothing unpredictable ever happens sounds like a pretty boring game, imho. It also seems kinda antithetical to the history simulators that Paradox specialises in, and Stellaris is very much a future history simulator.

 

[Thiend]

I won't lie, the penalties for not having those default council positions look way too high. Like, so high that I'd never ever not be using at least the minister of science because that's an absolutely brutal penalty for any playstyle, the others are equally brutal but some playstyles I wouldn't care about the specific penalty.

I'd suggest buffs to the positions so they're more competitive, then making the penalty be for not having any of a given type of leader - so for example you wouldn't have any penalty for not having a minister of science, but you would for having no scientists on the council at all.

 

[Maolove]

Hi dear Alfray Stryke , Eladrin ! Can you help me?
Why <Challenge> Succession Type in Federation, when <Arena Combat>... ( The rulers of all federation members fight in an arena battle, and the winner becomes president while all losers are killed ) does not provide any risk benefits? Doesn't give a "unique" perk for the "winner" of the deadly arena, doesn't give experience, doesn't give any empire modifier ( temporary ), doesn't give absolutely anything... why?

 

[Harvey_James]

i had some thoughts on espionage rework and ideas i had...
- add spies ofc
-special covert cloak module line for spy ships only spy can pilot maybe a anti spy cloak only special starbase mod has to have fitted alongside the needed strength too detect? and they could take over from cloaked scientist ships trying to do reconnaissance and spying and could help with the ease that starbases have with detecting cloaked ships so easy... a whole line of spy cloaks at double strength could be the solution alongside needing a special anti spy cloak device?? ..

- spy ship would allow spy too operate in with special options like large sensor sweep allowing you too detect ships upto a certain radius with detailed stats of ships and starbases.
- some spy missions would be done through spy ship some could be more passive over time operations as normal through spy network, remove influence from most missions maybe keep too only some mission types?
others like bribing would ofc be credit only based as would make sense..

- add criminal syndicate government type as a replacement for criminal heritage and with that get bonuses too spying and get criminal boosting operations from spies things that could buff a (branch office) would could be called something new like syndicate planet outpost and be impossible to get rid off but less harmful too planet but would allow spy ops that could be great for intel more criminal ops etc..

 

[Edorath]

Since envoys are gone, couldn't we just hire 50 leaders to send to gal com to blow out our diplomatic weight? They won't level up sure, but who cares if you can have 50.

envoys are still there and you will only be able to assign one in the galcom