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Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

Space Satan

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One thing we are considering is allowing you to manually override which species should be growing on a planet, for situations like this. Basically giving a specific species priority for a particular planet. Even 'mining worlds' will rarely be completely 100% mining jobs though.
Newly growth pops get a default Stratum based on species rights, usually Worker in a regular empire.
Growth Speed is a base amount affected by modifiers, to which immigration is added. Food surplus doesn't directly affect it anymore, though there might still be ways to boost growth by spending food.
There is no more manual building of Pops. You just have to set up a Robotics Plant and disable/demolish it if you want to stop building robots.
Battle Thralls are supposed to be 'free' in most aspects other than the fact that they are required to perform military service.
Caste System has been replaced with the Stratified Economy living standard (only available to Authoritarians) that prioritizes Specialist and especially Ruler pops at the expense of workers. It's more or less the same effect, just without having to keep track of which Pops are or are not enslaved. Either way, Migration controls are no longer forced expect on purging pops.
Yeah, giving rights to robots is going to massively increase housing and luxury needs, so it isn't something you can just do without preparing for it (or suffering the resulting chaos).
will all robots become sapient as soon as you research synths now, or can you make some robots sapient and others not?
They become sapient, but you have to manually choose to give them citizen rights.
The migration system is really a whole lot less complex than some of you guys seem to think it is, at least in terms of how you interact with it. The gist of it is:
- Planets with free housing, high stability and/or free jobs get immigrants
- Planets with overcrowding, low stability and/or unemployment get emigrants
- Which species will grow on your planet, and how your species demographics change over time, depend on your species rights and diplomatic treaties
There's a lot going on under the hood, but how you relate to it is mostly whether you want to focus on growth through immigration or not.
Each species gets a 'demographical weight' based on factors like citizen rights, growth speed modifier, etc. This is then modified by their current numbers on the planet, with weight being reduced the more of them there already is. Finally a bit of randomness is applied, and highest weight is picked. For example, if you have 10 Humans and 10 Blorg, it will be a roughly 50/50 chance to get a Human or a Blorg, but if it was 2 Humans and 10 Blorg, you'd be guaranteed another Human unless there was another major factor such as the Humans had only Residence rights, which adds a large weight decrease in being picked for next pop.
Part 4 will mainly be about Hive Minds and Machine Empires and how they work in the new system. They have their own Stratum, but they're not social classes, just different broad categories of roles for Drones (mainly there for interface organizing reasons).
There are Merchant Ruler Pops as well, among others.

Defensive Armies come from Jobs now, yes.
It depends on the slavery type. Chattel Slaves have a productivity bonus and require less housing/luxuries, but can only work menial jobs. Domestic Servants have no bonus but can also work as Entertainers and have a special Servant job instead of unemployment. Battle Thralls also have no production bonus but can work all types of jobs, etc.
No, but domestic servants will be able to work other jobs if said jobs are empty and have no non-Servant pop to work them.


Also some changes to sectors is announced.
 

Delterius

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Dec 12, 2012
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Entre a serra e o mar.
The Final Form of the New World Order.

E13253D5E34E527D068C9D9D822A380D93B92918

As our children reach the heavens, all secrets are thus revealed:

EF48AF373644DC4A95DBC1D2BDF889C251759042


Finally ready for Le Guin.
 

Lone Wolf

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Apr 17, 2014
Messages
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It will take months for the modding scene to adjust. The major mods (AlphaMod etc) will be out for a long, long time.

On the other hand, graphic mods (shipsets/planetary graphics/backdrops) should be up and running with a change in ver number. Tech mods might be a while, considering the change in building system, pop production and the new job system. Ship components shouldn't be too difficult. Government overhauls are going to get shellacked, too, but basic fixes will probably be done in a matter of weeks.
 

Space Satan

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Stellaris mods are shit, they are suitable at best as a cosmetic crap, for making all your species white for example(and even then achievements will be unavalable)
 
Joined
Aug 21, 2010
Messages
272
Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit.

No idea how I missed it when I went looking a few months ago. I remember that the author had a giant hissyfit after the first giant round of Stellaris changes and told everyone he was quitting. Guess he decided not to.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
I wouldn't count on a mod made by a mentally unstable individual who throws hissyfits, though. Not unless your goal is to simply take it apart and make your own.
 
Joined
Aug 21, 2010
Messages
272
He did make an excellent mod. Of course now it'll have to be redesigned and rebalanced almost from scratch. Again. I can understand some... frustration.
 

Space Satan

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Handling space niggas and dindus
Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we're going to continue on the topic that we started on in Dev Diary #121: The Planetary Rework coming in the 2.2 'Le Guin' update. As this is a massive topic that affects many areas of the game, we've split it into four parts. Today's part is going to be talking about Happiness, Stability and Crime.

Planet Stability
In the Le Guin update, Planetary Stability is the most important factor for determining the productivity and prosperity of your planets. Planetary Stability represents the overall political stability on a planet, and is influenced by a large number of factors such as Pop Happiness, Housing, Amenities, Crime and so on. Planetary Stability ranges from 0 to 100% and has a base level of 50%. A Planet that has at least 50% stability will gain bonuses to resource production and immigration pull, while a planet that drops below 50% stability will experience penalties to resource production and increased emigration push. Below 40% stability, unrest events such as hunger strikes, terrorist bombings and so on may start to occur, which can further lower stability down below the threshold for an armed revolt to start. We're still looking into which parts of the previous Unrest events we want to keep, replace, or convert to the new Crime system, so the exact way in which unrest events and armed revolts will work is not fully decided at this point, and we'll likely cover it more in detail in a future dev diary.
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Pop Happiness and Approval Rating
Pop Happiness is a major factor in determining planet stability. Each Planet that contains at least one Pop with free will has a Pop Approval Rating value that is the average happiness of the Pops, modified by their Political Power. Each Pop has a Political Power value that depends on their stratum and living conditions - for example, a Ruler Pop living in a Stratified Economy will have an immense degree of Political Power, and their happiness may be more important than that of even a dozen Worker Pops. However, even Pops with no political power at all can still drag down your Approval Rating, so a planet with a vast mass of angry slaves will need some Rulers to keep them in line. On the individual Pop level, Happiness no longer affects productivity, so to ensure your planets are productive you now only need make sure your Stability level is high, and whether you achieve that stability with a happy populace or ruling with an iron fist is up to your ethics, policies and general playstyle preferences. Individual Pop Happiness is not entirely without effect though, as the happiness of a Pop determines how likely it is to adopt your governing ethics, and also affects how much Crime it generates (see below for further details).
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Amenities
As part of trying to consolidate systems relating to happiness we've added a new value called Planet Amenities. Amenities represents infrastructure, facilities and jobs dedicated to fulfilling the day-to-day needs of the population. In order to not suffer penalties, a planet needs at least as many Amenities as it has Infrastructure, and any Amenities above or below that number cause increased/decreased Pop Happiness, respectively. Capital Buildings and many Ruler jobs produce a base amount of Amenities and may be sufficient for a sparsely populated mining world, but urbanized planets will likely need to dedicate part of their infrastructure to Amenities-producing jobs such as Entertainers to keep the population happy. Many of the things that used to directly increase Happiness in the old Tile system (such as Domestic Servants or certain special buildings) now produce Amenities instead, and direct Happiness-buffing modifiers have been made rare, so keeping your entire population perfectly happy is now something that requires dedication and resources, rather than just a matter of throwing down a couple of buildings and calling it a day.
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Crime
Something else that we wanted to achieve with the new system was to create the potential for social and political unrest without necessarily having it take the form of a direct penalty or revolt, especially on heavily populated worlds. Crime is a value generated by all virtually all Pops with free will, and can vary between 0 and 100% on a planet. Happy Pops produce less crime, while unhappy Pops produce more crime, but only Pops at a perfect 100% happiness produce no crime at all. Crime has no actual direct penalty, but instead may result in events such as smuggler rings or organized crime taking root on the planet. These events and conditions are generally detrimental, but may also open up certain benficial opportunities and decisions that would not be available on a planet with perfect law and order. Nonetheless, a very high level of Crime is generally something to be avoided, as crime can lower stability and also result in Pops leaving their ordinary jobs and moving into special Crime jobs that appear on the planet and which take resources away from your empire rather than producing them. To combat Crime, you can build buildings such as Precinct Districts that create crime-suppressing Enforcer jobs. In general, empires that rely on repression and inequality to keep their Pops in line will need to employ more Enforcers, but there will also be other ways to manage Crime, possibly including ways to integrate the criminal enterprises as a fixture in your society (the exact details on this is still very much something that's a work in progress).
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That's all for today! Next week we'll continue with the final part of the Planetary Rework dev diaries, on the topic of Machine Empires, Hive Minds, Habitats and other mechanics that are changing alongside the Planetary Rework.
 
Joined
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Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we're going to continue on the topic that we started on in Dev Diary #121: The Planetary Rework coming in the 2.2 'Le Guin' update. As this is a massive topic that affects many areas of the game, we've split it into four parts. Today's part is the last one, in which we'll be talking about how some special empires and planets such as Hive Minds, Machine Empires and Habitats will work under the new planetary rework system.

Gestalt Consciousnesses

One of the aims of the Planetary Rework was that we wanted to be able to present the different kinds of societies in Stellaris as actually being different on the planet. Under the old system, the planet of a Gestalt Consciousness feels very much like the planet of any other empire, save for a few minor differences such as the fact that the pops don't have happiness. Under Le Guin, this will change considerably, with Hive Minds and Machine Empires getting their own districts, buildings, strata, jobs and planetary mechanics. Hive Minds and Machine Empires share some mechanical differences with normal empires - they do not produce Trade Value and have no internal trade routes (more on this in a later DD), their pops lack Happiness, and instead of Crime they have Deviancy, representing Drones that malfunction or go rogue in some manner. Instead of the normal Strata, pops are generally divided into Simple Drones and Complex Drones, with the previous producing amenities and raw resources and the latter producing research, unity and finished goods. Amenities for Gestalts represents the necessary maintenance capacity required for planet to be functional, and impacts Stability directly instead of affecting Pop Happiness. Stability is still a factor for Gestalts, representing how smoothly the planet is functioning as a part of the collective. A low-stability Gestalt planet will not experience revolts if there are only drones present on it, but it will be impaired in other ways, such as resource production penalties. Gestalts also not produce or require luxury goods, with the sole exception of Rogue Servitors that need it for their bio-trophies.

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Hive Minds

In Le Guin, the planets of Hive Minds are focused around rapid growth. Instead of City districts, Hive Minds have Hive districts that provide a very large amount of housing, and each of their raw resource districts provides three jobs where a normal empire only gets two. Hive Minds use the normal biological Pop Growth mechanic, and can also make use of migration mechanics internally - drones will emigrate from overcrowded worlds and immigrate to worlds with free housing. Hive Minds also have a special building, the Spawning Pool, that provides Spawning Drone jobs which use a large amount of food to increase the rate of pop growth on the planet. Furthermore, Hive Minds have their own set of capital buildings that lack the 'colony shelter' level - a newly colonized Hive Mind planet has a fully functional capital present from day one. All of these mechanics make Hive Minds ideal for a 'wide' playstyle, expanding rapidly and claiming huge swathes of space for the Hive.

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Machine Empires

Machine Empires share some similarities with Hive Minds, but rather than being focused on rapid growth, their primary focus is efficient use of resources. Like the Hive Minds, they have their own version of housing district, the Nexus District, and their resource extraction districts also provide three jobs where normal empires get two, but in addition to this they also have substantial bonuses to finished goods production, with jobs such as the Fabricator being a more efficient and productive variant of the regular alloy-producing Metallurgist. However, this comes at the expense of being unable to naturally produce new pops, having to rely on costly Replicator jobs to construct new drones. Machine Empires are ideal for an empire that wants to be self-sustaining, and truly shine when they have access to numerous kinds of natural resources.

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Habitats
Finally, another mechanic from a previous expansion that is changing considerably in Le Guin is Habitats. Habitats are still acquired and constructed in the same way as before, but rather than being size 12 planets with a handful of unique buildings, Habitats are now a mere size 6 (8 with Master Builders), but have their own entirely unique set of Districts. Rather than building City, Mining, Farming or Generator districts, Habitats have the following districts available:
  • Habitation District: Provides housing
  • Research District: Provides researcher jobs
  • Trade District: Provides trade value jobs (Non-Gestalt only)
  • Leisure District: Provides unity and amenities jobs (Non-Gestalt only)
  • Reactor District: Provides energy-producing jobs (Gestalt only)

No matter the type, each District built on a Habitat provides a fixed amount of infrastructure (currently 5, or 1 building per 2 districts). Habitats can support most regular planetary buildings, and so can be further specialized towards for example trade, goods production or research, but lack virtually all ability to produce raw resources. Since research and unity penalties scale towards an empire's number of districts rather than planets in the Le Guin update, they are also highly efficient for tall empires, as Habitat districts provide a larger amount of housing, infrastructure and jobs compared to regular planet districts.

(NOTE: This interface is extremely WIP, the finished version will have non-placeholder art and better district number display, among other things)

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That's all for today! Next week we're finally moving on to the rest of the Le Guin update, starting with the Galactic Market. We may be done talking about the planetary rework (for now), but there's much more to the update we've yet to even begin showing you!
 

Prime Junta

Guest
So is this any good yet? I haven't played since this time last year or thereabouts.
 

Smashing Axe

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Messages
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Divinity: Original Sin
Has the combat strategy in this improved at all? Last I looked at this game the best strategy was to just mass produce the smallest ship class and swarm your enemy, with tech only ever providing small marginal combat improvements.
 

lophiaspis

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 24, 2012
Messages
379
So is this any good yet? I haven't played since this time last year or thereabouts.

It's irredeemable. For all of Wiz's efforts I doubt he can ever make it anything more than mediocre. Just an absolute mind boggling abortion of a game.
 

whatevername

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Has the combat strategy in this improved at all? Last I looked at this game the best strategy was to just mass produce the smallest ship class and swarm your enemy, with tech only ever providing small marginal combat improvements.
Before 2.0 the best strategy was battleships with kinetic artillery led by admiral with weapon range bonus so you could destroy a part of a vastly superior doomstack before they got into range with their horrible fits like of the weapons being S, M guns and then warp out. Repeat.

In 2.0 research takes too long so I've no idea. After I conquered 1/3 of the galaxy with just 1 planet, researching a new ship type or any other technology takes decades because I have 1 planet and like 200 systems. And you know how those scientists are; when there's a star system with nothing in it but your flag planted on an asteroid, 1 of your scientists just has to travel there from Earth to see it. And while he's doing that you get no research from him.

Past 2.0 the best strategy to defeat your enemy is to format the hard drive where Stellaris is.
 

whatevername

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After I conquered 1/3 of the galaxy with just 1 planet, researching a new ship type or any other technology takes decades because I have 1 planet and like 200 systems.
In 2.0 planets pay for themselves. Efficiency is about having as many planets crammed into as few systems as possible.
When you play chess with a cat, you should only have a king and 8 pawns while a cat has everything. That's called a "handicap" and it makes the game more fair. Since the maximum difficulty in Stellaris is too easy, you need a handicap to balance out the shit AI, like playing with only 1 planet. You might also consider playing with only 1 population and not building anything, randomly blowing up your own ships (LARP accidents and negligence), blowing up your own starbases (LARP MoO2 espionage), etc.
 

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