Psionic and Genetic (and storms): seriously, when?

[Thiend]

Based on the way they reworked cybernetic/synthetic, I strongly suspect this is the way they're going to go with this.

Basically, they made the psionic Imperial authority already. Now they just need to go back and make the psionic democracy/oligarchy/dictatorship/megacorp.


I could easily see it as something (very vaguely) akin to agendas's launch mechanic, where you can delve on a regular basis for free, but can pay extra to go early. Essentially: it has a cooldown, but unity production effectively translates to cooldown reduction.

But outright removing the cooldown in favor of a big unity cost would be brutal for empires that don't excel at unity production, and make delving a "run through all the events until we have all the buffs up for the next 10 years" thing for empires with strong unity production.

To be completely fair, psionic empires are inherently somewhat better than normal at specifically unity production.

I agree though, without going TOO in-depth because it's likely the rework is mostly set in stone already, shroud delving being like agendas would probably be good. I wouldn't want an empire with strong unity production to just delve at-will, because that reproduces a lot of the problems psionic currently has in making it favor certain choices so much that making different ones leaves it pathetically weak (in this case, if delving at will with unity is an option... that's necessarily going to mean not doing that is weak, or doing it is too OP. I feel like a broken record saying that all the time with stuff like this and Cordyceptic Drones but... it's true).

 

[LiZinckle]

To be perfectly honest, I think even adding espionage was the mistake. They listened to people who wanted it and probably shouldn't have, because if espionage is more than a footnote in the hands of a player it's intolerable for everyone who can be a target, namely the player. "My secret project destroyed my enemy" only sounds awesome until it becomes "my enemy's secret project destroyed me."

I took some time to ponder on the espionage in strategy game in general. What should it be? I played these genres the most, so these come in mind:

1. A reskinned resource. XCOM showed a flavourful espionage can indeed be a resource generator. This sort of design is limited to the player, therefore has minimal repercurssion.

2. A Civ:BE system. On lower difficulty it is similar to XCOM, that siphoning energy or steal technology would not incur immediate negative effect on the target. On higher difficulty it would be troublesome, but it is relatively easy to detect and counter with your own agents.

3. Stellaris. It cannot be countered actively. Sure, build up encrytion and call it a day, but a passive defense is nothing to write home about. To arrest the feeling of humiliation or insult on the face*, they make it trival instead.

That is probably why I also agree it will not bode well if they just make the espionage more imapctful without introducing more tools to the kit, for example, active and easy to manage counter-intelligence. Although it is plausible the other way, that it is indeed bland and it is at most a half baked content. Cosidering it is part of another expansion, it regrettablly makes sense.

*It is a common game design on 'penalty' as a whole, and different game genres would approach it differently. For example, most modern games took those as guideline: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/feedback-in-games-how-to-design-rewards-and-punishments

I am curious about the other side of story who favours all these random bland penalty stuff, but those people seems to be tacet, who always disagree but hardly explain. How disappointing, I was expecting a persuasive argument

 

[Thiend]

I took some time to ponder on the espionage in strategy game in general. What should it be? I played these genres the most, so these come in mind:

1. A reskinned resource. XCOM showed a flavourful espionage can indeed be a resource generator. This sort of design is limited to the player, therefore has minimal repercurssion.

2. A Civ:BE system. On lower difficulty it is similar to XCOM, that siphoning energy or steal technology would not incur immediate negative effect on the target. On higher difficulty it would be troublesome, but it is relatively easy to detect and counter with your own agents.

3. Stellaris. It cannot be countered actively. Sure, build up encrytion and call it a day, but a passive defense is nothing to write home about. To arrest the feeling of humiliation or insult on the face*, they make it trival instead.

That is probably why I also agree it will not bode well if they just make the espionage more imapctful without introducing more tools to the kit, for example, active and easy to manage counter-intelligence. Although it is plausible the other way, that it is indeed bland and it is at most a half baked content. Cosidering it is part of another expansion, it regrettablly makes sense.

*It is a common game design on 'penalty' as a whole, and different game genres would approach it differently. For example, most modern games took those as guideline: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/feedback-in-games-how-to-design-rewards-and-punishments

I am curious about the other side of story who favours all these random bland penalty stuff, but those people seems to be tacet, who always disagree but hardly explain. How disappointing, I was expecting a persuasive argument

This is a surprisingly common phenomenon with stuff like espionage and internal politics, where people who want it will disagree on any post saying it's a bad idea but around 90% of such disagree-ers have absolutely nothing to say FOR espionage/IP/etc.

The central problem is that doing espionage needs to have costs that reduce your effective power in other areas, or else everyone will be forced to play an espionage minigame on top of the gameplay they actually want. Or they'd need to add ways to completely shut down espionage without engaging with the system, which would effectively make everyone who didn't want to use it required to do that instead.

I would suggest a job costing a unity upkeep as an input for espionage actions, which would make it effectively cost military power because you'd be able to support less unity, research or alloy. This would also be a thematic match - empires with lots of bureaucrats, lots of faction support, lots of converted trade etc would be able to more easily support some of this job, and that all seems to fit with what would support a robust clandestine operation. Empires not investing in espionage wouldn't just be strictly worse off, so it wouldn't just become a requirement for everyone (we have too many separate systems as it is, Astral Rifts should use DM and that's all I'll say). Espionage-based empires could then use operations for example increasing war exhaustion for the enemy, against an overall comparable opponent.

That last bit would also combine nicely with a war rework, because a system having positive and negative war score rather than only positive war exhaustion would be far better in my opinion.

 

[cryptkeeper]

The Animator/Mender of Clay already exists in game; it's a Shroud entity that's interested in synthetic/machine beings. It can both repurpose a gestalt into an individualist empire of those machines (if you choose to swap) and, through a different event, intervene to rewrite Cetana to be less broken. The Warform has also been blessed by the Animator of Clay, and is actually capable of becoming psionic, despite being purely a machine.

And "Shroud interaction = soul" is canonically Spiritualist dogma, not necessarily actual reality. Machine or synthetically ascended empires can step bodily into the Shroud, despite having no "soul", through either crisis path, so clearly something is off with that interpretation.

The game intentionally leaves it ambiguous whether the Shroud just naturally makes an echo of biological minds because of some quirk of their structure (which machines/synths lack), or if consciousness really does arise from the Shroud (making your Shroud presence your actual "soul" in a more concrete sense), and robots do lack a soul (and are just imitating consciousness). Spiritualists say it's the latter. Materialists (once they learn of the undeniable reality of the Shroud) would say it's the former.

It's worth noting that even Fanatic Materialists can take psionic ascension.

Which Is why a story based origin for machines and the shaper of clay would be awesome, especially if at the end you could choose to take the psionic ascension. I get that most machines should not have this choose, but a special origin like the cybernetic spiritualist origin would be awesome.

 

[Thiend]

Which Is why a story based origin for machines and the shaper of clay would be awesome, especially if at the end you could choose to take the psionic ascension. I get that most machines should not have this choose, but a special origin like the cybernetic spiritualist origin would be awesome.

That just means all psionic machines have to use that origin, and therefore no psionic machines with other origins are playable.

I kind of hate that conceptually. It is too restrictive, which is already true of some origins.

I think the best way (if they do it at all) would be to make it just different, less extreme versions of psionic ascension, kind of like how non-machines have less extreme versions of virtual and modular ascensions (and no nanotech at all). Make it a mirrored system.

 

[Nakkivene]

One angle on espionage could be liberties/surveillance. Do you have a more happy, more free society or a more secure one?

Could also have options on weighing internal security against foreign operations. Maybe you just don't want to bother and max out the defenses.

But the most important aspect is just what should it do. Engineer war goals, cause ethics shift, steal stuff, generate revolts... Does it get always get too obnoxious if it does something?

Maybe much like xeno-compatibility perhaps there could be off-switch for high impact operations if those were to exist?

A limitation on the implementation on any sort of espionage system is the amount of information kinda necessarily available to the player in order to make the game playable, also the real - time way everything works, no plans exist until the second they do (there's the preparing for war dec thing tho which is nice) and nobody wants to spy for things like 'starts building alloy foundry!'.

 

[Calvax]

1. I like the idea of making Divine Sovereign and Covenants mutually exclusive, and of there being a new non-authoritarian alternative.

Agreed. The covenants don't fit all role play (why would my egalitarian empire sign away the souls of their entire species, including the unborn, to some warp god they met five minutes ago?) but if you don't take them you're gibbed.

I'd rather we had the covenants and two options to reject them. One where your species focuses all their power onto an individual (creating the chosen one) and another where your people focus it into a domain they can all access as needed.

 

[Beauty Nova]

This is a surprisingly common phenomenon with stuff like espionage and internal politics, where people who want it will disagree on any post saying it's a bad idea but around 90% of such disagree-ers have absolutely nothing to say FOR espionage/IP/etc.

I'm fairy certain you've seen my IP pitch before, though if Mendota serves you did it was actually a faction system rework despite the soft power elements.

 

[Thiend]

I'm fairy certain you've seen my IP pitch before, though if Mendota serves you did it was actually a faction system rework despite the soft power elements.

I vaguely recall seeing that and that just means you're part of the 10% that actually have ideas.

I don't remember whether I agreed with the details, but you had actual pro-IP ideas so that was good. I think a custodian patch basically bringing the original stuff along the theme of internal politics up to par could be good, it just would be a very bad idea for the central theme of a DLC. There isn't enough content, if they try to draw blood from that stone we'll just get a lot of bad content.

Mostly, it would be fixing stuff changing from the tile system broke, but not entirely.

 

[Beauty Nova]

it just would be a very bad idea for the central theme of a DLC.

On this I think we agree. My proposed tenet system would make more sense as a core thing that future dlcs (or future custodian projects to add new content to old dlcs) might sprinkle a new tenet or two into the mix. Like the storms dlc, if we had to have it, could have added storm based tenets so you could build a meteorology based state religion with, same with the dimensional worship thing in astral planes. And cyborg did in machine age. As well a some non spiritualist tenets.

edit: screw it, I've got a few days off and I really need to get this idea out of my head in more detail. I'll try to write up a detailed pitch with tenets for all 8 ethics, and even some I think would have fit existing dlcs some time this weekend.

 

[HFY]

edit: screw it, I've got a few days off and I really need to get this idea out of my head in more detail. I'll try to write up a detailed pitch with tenets for all 8 ethics, and even some I think would have fit existing dlcs some time this weekend.

Some Ethics have multiple different interpretations, so don't feel like you're limited to only 8 tenets even if you have them all be Ethic-locked.

 

[Beauty Nova]

Some Ethics have multiple different interpretations, so don't feel like you're limited to only 8 tenets even if you have them all be Ethic-locked.

The entire point of tenets is so you can play different interpretations of the ethics.

Just as an example, one dichotomy I've got in mind is for authoritariamism. On one end Great Man Theory (current faction, name pending) and on the other Noblesse Oblige (your ruling class really cares whether the serfs are happy). I imagine there will also be some non ethic locked ones.

 

[cryptkeeper]

Agreed. The covenants don't fit all role play (why would my egalitarian empire sign away the souls of their entire species, including the unborn, to some warp god they met five minutes ago?) but if you don't take them you're gibbed.

I'd rather we had the covenants and two options to reject them. One where your species focuses all their power onto an individual (creating the chosen one) and another where your people focus it into a domain they can all access as needed.

The way I see something like that is taking it in a direction similar to the emperor of man kind, or the god emperor of dune. But that would be anti egalitarian, so perhaps, it should go in the direction of what is the majority ethic in your population.

Spiritual for example would elevate your species to some sort of transcendence where they live part in the shroud part in the psychical world.

Authoritarian would create a god emperor of dune type scenario where you have one leader who ascends to the shroud and guides the society with precognition basically becoming a shroud entity.

Militarist your society focuses on fighting against and conquering the shroud entities and taking their power through force.

Xenophile why choose a entity when your civilization can embrace all of them, some sort of chaos undivided thing XD.

Pacifist attempt to create their own stable separate region with in the shroud to draw power from.

Materialist reject the shroud touching the material plan and the entities attempting to manipulate them through it, and pear deeper perhaps even finding something greater meaning.

Egalitarians stand together rejecting the entities find, using their combined psionic power to become a entity of their own.

Xenophobes reject the parts of the shroud that contain entities and search for a void they can call their own.

That just means all psionic machines have to use that origin, and therefore no psionic machines with other origins are playable.

I kind of hate that conceptually. It is too restrictive, which is already true of some origins.

I think the best way (if they do it at all) would be to make it just different, less extreme versions of psionic ascension, kind of like how non-machines have less extreme versions of virtual and modular ascensions (and no nanotech at all). Make it a mirrored system.

I think it should be restrictive, but I understand your perspective and could see it taken in that direction as well.

 

[Geodynamis]

Psionics need a rework? It just got a pretty good and strong one, and I feel it is still very decent. What is the problem with it?

It draws too much from Warhammer 40,000, which makes it hard to rationalize with non-dystopian empires like egalitarians.

 

[Kataclyszm]

non-dystopian empires like egalitarians.

I take that as a challenge.

 

[cryptkeeper]

It draws too much from Warhammer 40,000, which makes it hard to rationalize with non-dystopian empires like egalitarians.

Too be fair most psionics in sci fi are usually for horror or used by malevolent beings. Only exceptions to this are the rare empaths( which I could see working better for democratic societies) , This is not only a warhammer40k thing.

 

[thestarsseeall]

Two things on espionage:

Divide everything into more choices.

Right now, you either have strong encryption or you don't. Do you want to defend against a particular empire? A particular type of operation? One of the parts of espionage I have some respect for are the assets. It adds a bit of random elements, and gives the player choices on fishing for a better asset or going for different espionage category than what they'd hoped for. Expanding the moving parts of espionage gives players room to fail or succeed based on their choices in game.

Are operations cheap, fast, or reliable? Is your network good at infiltrating hostile empires, manipulating friendly ones, or just maintaining order inside yourself? Are you focused on codebreaking, encryption, or a balance? Which types of operations are you good using, and which ones are you good at defending against? Is there a particular government type that you are hostile against?

Ambassadors should replace envoys. Instead of generic empire wide buffs, who you send will be an active choices that affects how a nation perceives you and how your operations go. Someone suave, who is good at brushing over failed operations and improving relations? Someone boring, who can't really affect opinions either way but is hardworking and can sneak into places? Someone loud and outspoken, who will rile up the enemy and any dissidents inside their empire?

Give other systems more options to affect espionage instead of it being standalone.

• If you take economic buffs instead of war buffs, you can still fight. You can take the energy you get from trade and buy alloys or mercenary fleets. You can turn trade into unity, and give gifts to raise diplomatic opinion.
• If you are a diplomatic empire, you rely on bulwarks, defensive pacts, and Federations for your fleets. You can get more resources from trade treaties and increase production using senate resolutions.
• If you are a Unity empire, you increase power by rushing traditions and ascension perks, plus edicts, to shape the direction of your empire.

Out of all of those above, as far as I'm aware only Unity has any real effect on Espionage with some edicts providing codebreaking and encryption. Rich empires should be able to pay their workers more money in exchange for better loyalty, or pay even bigger bribes to convert enemies. Do diplomatic empires share intelligence between them? How does that differ between regular vassals, bulwarks, pacts, federations, and the galactic senate?

 

[HFY]

It draws too much from Warhammer 40,000, which makes it hard to rationalize with non-dystopian empires like egalitarians.

New Cybernetics also has a dystopian outcome for Egalitarians.

It would be nice if there were more non-dystopian outcomes in general -- keeping the dystopian options, but not trying to force them quite so much.

 

[grommile]

Too be fair most psionics in sci fi are usually for horror or used by malevolent beings. Only exceptions to this are the rare empaths( which I could see working better for democratic societies) ,

Your statement probably says more about your taste in science fiction than about psychics in science fiction.

Like, there are a bunch of well-known film, television, and video game interstellar-space-traversing science fiction works that feature non-horror, non-malevolent, not-primarily-empathic psychics (and psychic-adjacent folks).

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Too be fair most psionics in sci fi are usually for horror or used by malevolent beings. Only exceptions to this are the rare empaths( which I could see working better for democratic societies) , This is not only a warhammer40k thing.

I believe they were referring to the "you must make a Faustian bargain with the Shroud entities and also simultaneously worship your powerfully-psionic, but otherwise fallible, ruler as a god-emperor, or else be weak" aspect as being specifically dystopian and from WH40k.

Whether or not psionics is often a bit dystopian in other franchises (since mind powers have lots of nasty implications) is sorta irrelevant compared to the stuff directly cribbed from the franchise so over-the-top that a short quote from its intro ("grimdark") has become shorthand "needlessly bleak, edgy, and dystopian".

That said: I've read plenty of books where psionics and mind magic were powerful tools that were capable of being used for either good or evil.