Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

I like Origins that change the way the game plays and certainly this is one of those origins I will stay away from.

Same.

So instead of a lame list of traits, you would be able to configure your species' details. Imagine making a bunch of rock-eating slithering monsters who can hear but see better than a hawk.

If those details has some gameplay effect they can be implemented as traits.
If they have no gameplay effect, it can be just flavor text and sprite.

The problem is that the traits system is too limited. Its why Civics were split into Civics and Origins, Civics was just not doing it anymore, too broad.

My idea was more of a "Full Species Customization".

The thing is that aparently minor characteristics can end up being very important if handled right.
Its funny, humans in sci-fi tend to be portrayed as the Mario or puny Earthlings. The one exception is often HFY fiction where humans are often portrayed as some badass species for some reason.

For example, did you know humans are a pursuit predator? If there are stats we have bonuses in, it would be Endurance and Intelligence. We're like, the Terminators of the Natural Kingdom. We can literally out-tire most species in a pursuit, they can out-run us but we can out-tire them. This is also significant because Pursuit Predation seems to lead to being a Social Species, and I guess you can see where I'm going with this.

In simple terms, rather than having a small set of general traits, you would have multiple sets of traits for certain broad characteristics. For example, is your species oviparous (lays eggs) or viviparous (infants grown within mother)? Does it breathe oxygen or something else? Things like that.

This would be more of a Stellaris 2 thing tbh. I suspect that Stellaris 2 would use CKIII's fancy 3D character system for species, but adapted for space aliens. Essentially, go Full Spore on customization.

 

[Axioms]

I like Origins that change the way the game plays and certainly this is one of those origins I will stay away from.

Same.

So instead of a lame list of traits, you would be able to configure your species' details. Imagine making a bunch of rock-eating slithering monsters who can hear but see better than a hawk.

If those details has some gameplay effect they can be implemented as traits.
If they have no gameplay effect, it can be just flavor text and sprite.

The problem is that the traits system is too limited. Its why Civics were split into Civics and Origins, Civics was just not doing it anymore, too broad.

My idea was more of a "Full Species Customization".

The thing is that aparently minor characteristics can end up being very important if handled right.
Its funny, humans in sci-fi tend to be portrayed as the Mario or puny Earthlings. The one exception is often HFY fiction where humans are often portrayed as some badass species for some reason.

For example, did you know humans are a pursuit predator? If there are stats we have bonuses in, it would be Endurance and Intelligence. We're like, the Terminators of the Natural Kingdom. We can literally out-tire most species in a pursuit, they can out-run us but we can out-tire them. This is also significant because Pursuit Predation seems to lead to being a Social Species, and I guess you can see where I'm going with this.

In simple terms, rather than having a small set of general traits, you would have multiple sets of traits for certain broad characteristics. For example, is your species oviparous (lays eggs) or viviparous (infants grown within mother)? Does it breathe oxygen or something else? Things like that.

This would be more of a Stellaris 2 thing tbh. I suspect that Stellaris 2 would use CKIII's fancy 3D character system for species, but adapted for space aliens. Essentially, go Full Spore on customization.

They can't shove CK3 characters into Stellaris until they make them actually interesting in CK3 first.

 

[Riel]

The final patch notes were published, other than what we already know I found interesting that now Corporations won't create rival corporation when releasing or creating new vassals, more incline. I am actually quite hopeful this time I will be able to play a game to the end.... we'll see.

Spoiler

#################################################################
######################### VERSION 3.4.0 ###########################
#################################################################

###################
Overlord Expansion Features
###################

• Three new advanced subject types called Specialist Empires have been introduced, which excel in certain areas while having deficiencies in others.
  • Bulwark - A bastion of defense that leaves basic resource acquisition to others.
  • Prospectorium - Excels at resource acquisition but has weaker research.
  • Scholarium - Specializes in research but relies on their allies for military support.

Similar to how Federations advance or degrade based on Cohesion, Specialist Empires improve based on loyalty, gaining additional perks and strengthening their bonuses and penalties as they level up through three tiers.

• New Constructions and Megastructures
  • Hyper Relays - Chained together, Hyper Relays permit high speed fleet travel and projection of effects to systems connected via the network.
  • Orbital Rings - Built around your worlds, Orbital Rings act similarly to Starbases and allow further development or defense of these core planets.
  • Quantum Catapult - The galaxy is within reach as the Quantum Catapult lets you fling ships across the galaxy, though with questionable accuracy. Yeet.

• New Enclaves
  • Salvager Enclave - A generally friendly bunch of tinkerers, obsessed with engineering, battle debris, and restoring or scrapping antiquated ships.
  • Shroudwalker Enclave - Disciples of the Shroud, the Shroudwalkers can call upon its powers to create shroud tunnels, or to attempt to divine the future - if you dare.
  • Mercenary Enclave - Empires can release a fleet to create a self-reinforcing Mercenary Enclave that brings dividends back to their patron. But remember, business is business, and concepts like loyalty don’t pay the bills.

• New Origins
  • Imperial Fiefdom - Your first steps into space were brutally short. Immediately subjugated alongside several others by a powerful and decadent overlord, you begin the game as a Specialist Empire of your choice.
  • Teachers of the Shroud - Your civilization was identified as a civilization of interest long ago by the Shroudwalkers, who carefully nurtured your development as their visions instructed. Your species begins with the Latent Psionics trait and in contact with the Shroudwalker coven.
  • Slingshot to the Stars - The Slingshot to the Stars origin explores how a nearby Quantum Catapult could shape your civilization. The histories of your people are filled with tales of brilliant lights flashing across the sky before the long seasons of darkness.
  • Subterranean - The underground homes of Subterranean empires grant defensive and mining benefits while allowing them to avoid hostile environments on the surface, at the cost of slower expansion.
  • Progenitor Hive - Hive-Mind only (also requires Utopia). The hive relies on the presence of the powerful offspring of the progenitor, guiding the hive’s will with incredible skill. Protect them well, for the drones are lost without their presence.

• New Ascension Perk - Profit from conflict with the Lord of War Ascension Perk.

• New Galactic Community Resolutions - Debate the place of Mercenaries and the rights and responsibilities of subjects and overlords with three new lines of Resolutions.

• New music tracks - 4 new songs added to the game and Original Soundtrack

• New Achievements - Show the galaxy who leads them with 11 new Steam achievements.

###################
3.4 “Cepheus” Features and Changes
###################

• Situations - Include a new system for tracking and interacting with ongoing stories in your empire
  • Deficit Situations will trigger if you have a negative monthly balance of a resource and it runs out.
  • Revolt Situations may trigger on planets with low stability, overhauling previous rebellion mechanics.
  • Machine Uprising Situation replaces old Machine Uprising event (requires synthetic dawn)
  • Leviathan Situations celebrate your great triumphs when besting such mighty beasts.
  • Other narrative Situations have been implemented to add even more flavor to your campaigns.

• Negotiation of Subjugation Agreements - The terms of subjugation agreements can now be negotiated and changed. Some terms that can be altered include:
  • Integration Possibility
  • Diplomatic Freedom
  • Ability to Expand
  • Resource Subsidies and Tithes
  • Defensive and Offensive War Responsibilities
  • Overlord Holding Limit
  • Sensor Sharing

The default terms of some contracts have been updated to fit the new system, and some specific terms or settings require Overlord.

• Allegiance Wars - The Pledge Secret Fealty diplomatic action has been added, which allows subject empires to secretly plot with a new overlord. This permits a War of Allegiance - a new war goal that allows empires to fight other Overlords for control of subjects that have pledged secret fealty to them. All subjects that have pledged secret fealty will turn on their former overlord during the war.

• Subject Changes/Improvements:
  • Overlords can now build a holding on Subject Planets (holdings may require certain civics, origins, or DLC)
    • Overlord Garrison
    • Emporium
    • Aid Agency
    • Ranger Lodge - Environmentalist Civic
    • Noble Chateaus - Aristocratic Elite Civic
    • Recruitment Center - Citizens Service Civic
    • Gaia Seeder Outpost - Idyllic Bloom Civic (requires Plantoids)
    • Tree of Life Sapling - Tree of Life Origin (requires Utopia)
    • Dread Outpost - Reanimators Civic (requires Necroids)
    • Sacrificial Shrine - Death Cult Civics (requires Necroids)
    • Reemployment Center - Permanent Employment Civic (requires Necroids and Megacorp)
    • Franchising HQ - Franchising Civic (requires Megacorp)
    • Communal Housing Outreach - Shared Burdens Civic (requires Utopia)
    • Organic Haven - Rogue Servitor Civic (requires Synthetic Dawn)
    • Experimental Crater - Calamitous Birth Origin (requires Lithoids)
    • And twelve more holdings with Overlord.
  • Subjects now have a Loyalty value, rather than loyalty solely depending on their opinion of their overlord.
  • Subjects’ ethical compatibility with their Overlords may result in a monthly loyalty bonus or penalty.
  • Having more than one subject adds a monthly loyalty penalty to all subjects, which can be worked around with various civics and or the Shared Destiny ascension perk.
  • Subjects and Overlords have a bonus to infiltration growth on each other.
  • Operations on your subject or Overlord are reduced in difficulty.
  • Additional trade deal options between subjects and Overlords have been added.
  • Releasing a sector as subject now grants an initial 100 intel on that subject.
  • Integration is disabled by default.
  • Sectors released as subjects can now inherit the following origins from their parent empire, where appropriate - Progenitor Hive, Subterranean, Void Dweller, or Calamitous Birth.
  • Gateways (and Hyper Relays) can now be built in subject space.
  • AI Subjects of Player Empires now receive AI bonuses as if the difficulty level of the game were one level lower, rather than losing their bonuses entirely.

• MegaCorp Improvements as both Overlords and Subjects:
  • Empires that are the target of Impose Ideology wars or those created from Status Quo peace deals are no longer rival Megacorps, but instead Oligarchies with the Merchant Guilds civic.
  • Corporate Overlords can establish branch offices in their non-corporate subjects without having to sign a Commercial Pact. Likewise, corporate subjects with a non-corporate overlord can open branch offices in their overlord and fellow subjects.

• Major improvements to Planetary Automation:
  • Planetary Automation scripts based on designation are now more focused regarding what they build.
  • Right clicking on the planetary automation button will now open a menu which allows you to customize your focus of planetary automation: for instance, as well as the designation based focus (“build more minerals buildings”), it lets you enable handling of amenities and housing, crime, as well as more specialized building options such as psi corps.
  • Sector automation and planetary automation have been unified into the same system (sector automation will activate planetary automation for all planets in the sector, and assign relevant planetary designation types to the planets unless overridden.)
  • Additional planetary or sector automation options have been added:
    • Added a Unity sector automation setting
    • Forge, Factory and Industrial designations are now available on Ring Worlds
    • Fortress world designation is now available on Machine Worlds and Hive Worlds

• Automatic Resettlement Improvements
  • The Auto Resettlement formula for picking which planet pops will be resettled to has been improved: it is now easier to steer pops towards your capital and other special worlds (e.g. ring worlds).
    • Pops will now pick which planet to auto-migrate to based on which planet has the most free jobs, rather than the least. They also now take free housing into account better
    • "Ideal" worlds such as ring worlds, gaia worlds, hive worlds and machine worlds now have a 50% higher score when pops are deciding where to automatically resettle to. So they are more likely to want to move to your newly-founded ring world, for instance. Capital world planet designations also have a +10% score, and freshly founded colonies have 25% from their designation.
  • The resettlement tooltip (found by hovering over unemployment in the planet view) now provides far greater insights into how the system works, including showing the reasons pops cannot automatically resettle or the planet they are most likely to resettle to.
  • The outliner has been updated so planets with unemployed pops that are auto-migrating are now shown a yellow suitcase. The red suitcase should only appear if the planet actually requires your attention to resolve the unemployment problem.

• Various AI improvements with a focus on military behavior - full details in section below

• Added 73 new flag emblems, 63 new flag backgrounds and 47 new flag colors (including white!).
  • 12 new emblems each to match the Plantoid, Lithoid, Necroid, Aquatic, and Imperial shipsets
  • 6 new emblems for the Corporate and Legion categories
  • 1 new emblem for Paradox Arctic in Umeå

• Added improved human portraits, with 5 phenotypes, 5 eye colors, 7 clothing styles and many, many hairstyles (including facial hair)!

• Added Japanese and Korean language support.

###################
Balance
###################

• Subjugation casus belli is now automatically granted towards inferior empires.
• The Parliamentary System civic now allows factions to be generated much earlier in the game.
• Defense Platforms now have increased range, fire rate, tracking, and hull points, and are faster to build.
• Base market price for slaves doubled from 500 to 1000 energy credits to make selling pops more viable. Slave traits cost Modifiers for the Slave Market have been increased by roughly 10 times for positive ones and 4 times for negative traits.
• Endgame Crises can now happen after 25 years rather than 50 of the End Times.
• The Plunder wargoal now increases the chance to steal relics (that aren't the Galatron) to 50%.
• The Numistic Administration trait no longer provides an increase to energy output, it now provides a +33% output to trade value from jobs.
• Removed the requirement to have an upgraded capital building in order to build research labs or rare resource manufacturing buildings
• The Shared Destiny AP no longer affects subject integration cost or trust, instead removes the monthly loyalty penalty from having multiple subjects. Additionally, it can now be taken by Corporate empires.
• The Grasp the Void AP now grants increased draw weight for FTL travel techs.
• The Unbidden can no longer spawn in pulsar systems (as the star will disable their Dimensional Portal's shields)
• Resistance is Frugal no longer grants your strongholds a unity production of 3, instead it gives you 0.5 unity for each defensive army you have.
• Strength of Legions and Warbots now start with rank 3 Admirals and Generals.
• Espionage Operations now cost Influence to start rather than Energy Credits. Costs have been reduced by a factor of 10.
• Low Military Intel is now gained at 30 Intel instead of 40 and Medium Military Intel is now gained at 60 Intel instead of 70. The effects of Medium and High Military Intel have been swapped - medium now allows you to view ship loadout, high now grants visibility of location of military fleets.
• Added a nanites deposit to the Scavenger Bot system so you can use the reward you get for killing it.
• The Subterranean empire from the Seismic Disturbances event chain now spawns with the new Subterranean origin.
• Numistic Data Modeling technology now provides +5% Trade Value.

###################
AI
###################

• With sufficient Intel, there will now be a notification that the AI is planning to declare war on the player.
• Fixed a variety of AI military fleet behavior issues, including:
  • AI will be better at merging fleets where that makes sense (e.g. during peacetime, or when they have the same mission)
  • Fixed issues where your allies would follow your take point command even though they were not hostile to your targets, and several other issues with take point and follow fleet behavior
  • AI will now more actively engage hostile crises if they or their allies have been attacked by them
  • Fixed an issue where an AI fleet could get trapped in an enemy system by a disabled starbase. It will now approach the starbase to capture it.
• AI will now enable buildings that have been disabled.
• AI will now scale the production of rare resources according to the size of their economy.
• Moderately reduced the frequency of how often AI will sell slaves on the market.
• AI will now only consider jobs producing at least 3 amenities when doing the planet amenity balancing logic.
• AI will now declare "death spiral status" if they have 0 minerals and a negative mineral income. Jobs consuming minerals will be deprioritized until a sufficient mineral income has been reached and the empire can start rebuilding itself.
• The AI will now wait for a period of time before changing planet designations when taking over a player empire in multiplayer.
• AI members of a federation will no longer propose a vote on a law change that has been proposed in the last 10 years by anyone in the Federation.
• The player now gets a notification when the AI has recalled their embassy.
• AI will now only propose an embassy if they have a positive +50 relation and remove their embassy if they have lower than -50
• The AI is now better at dealing with non-standard colony ships (e.g. private colony ships, Lithoid colony asteroids).
• AI will now sell resources more aggressively to buy what they need in order to recover from death spiral type situations.
• Fixed several issues with Galactic Community voting, AI will no longer propose resolutions against their alignment, AI can recall their proposals or vote against their own proposals in some situations where it makes sense. Tooltips will now show the reasons an AI empire is voting the way they are.

###################
UI
###################

• Added new section in outliner for loaned out fleets (lease timer and its tooltip).
• The alert for diminishing resource stockpiles now properly only lists resources which you will imminently run out of.
• Added tooltips for agreement presets and specialist types to the Agreements view.
• The outliner will now tell you about blockers you can remove if you are approaching the planet's carrying capacity and therefore suffering growth penalties.
• Improved the layout of the Host DLC icons and surrounding elements in the Multiplayer Lobby.
• Moved the “Copy Server ID” functionality to a separate button in the multiplayer lobby.

###################
Performance & Stability
###################

• Optimized calculations for whether you are in breach of any galcom resolutions, which should provide a boost if many sanctions have been passed.
• Improved the performance of using triggered economic category modifiers.
• Improved performance of bypass handling in pathfinding to account for the fact that there are now many more of them in the galaxy (via hyper relays).
• Adjusted various ship textures for improved performance.

###################
Other Improvements
###################

• Significantly improved pop job assignment weightings:
  • Automatic scripted handling of resource output, trade and amenity bonuses and penalties from traits, i.e. pops with the better traits for the job will more reliably take the job. This eliminated many errors where we had imperfectly attempted to achieve this result in a much less robust and more verbose way.
  • Weighting now takes into account output penalties from low habitability
  • If you are in deficit, jobs producing that resource will now be weighted significantly higher, so your pops won't ignore mining jobs while your empire burns for lack of miners.
• Added new Subjugation War Terms policy, which sets the default Agreement Terms used when subjugating other empires through war.
• You can now nominate other empires to Custodianship, provided they meet the requirements.
• Idyllic Bloom has been improved by allowing construction of the Gaia-Seeder buildings (and holding!) to be built on a wider range of planet types, in exchange for increased upkeep, depending on the empire’s terraforming technology. In addition, the civic can now be combined with the Life-Seeded and Shattered Ring origins. Finally, Idyllic Bloom empires start with a Phase 1 Gaia-Seeder on their capital where appropriate.
• Shroud Entities that propose Covenants will now prefer empires that have ethics or civics that match their outlook. The End of the Cycle is more likely to offer a Covenant if another empire is a level 5 crisis.
• Several improvements to Baol/Zroni spawning: they will no longer spawn arc sites in your capital system, one of the Baol arc sites is now vastly less likely to spawn in someone else's territory, and they are a bit less likely to all spawn in a heap in neighboring systems.
• Modifiers giving administrator output now correctly reflect the sort of administrators the empire uses.
• Individual names for game objects can now be localized, allowing players to read names in their own language.
• Renamed the Corporate and Gestalt versions of Catalytic Processing to Catalytic Recyclers and Organic Reprocessing respectively.
• Quget.

###################
Bug Fixes
###################

• Federation allies in Common Ground and Hegemony origins no longer start with 0 resources (sometimes therefore falling into deficit immediately)
• Multi-path jumps should now show proper arrows.
• Bypass travel times are now correctly specified in days.
• War exhaustion icon now displays the correct values when resuming a saved game.
• Fixed the appearance of invalid em dash characters in a Crisis diplomacy message and a First Contact/Diplomacy tutorial event.
• Update to VIR's diplomatic tact subroutines: the tutorial no longer refers to enclaves as likely possessing an animal intelligence.
• Added a scrollbar to planetary production resources in planetview so they don't overflow.
• Fixed a variety of issues and oversights where the job weight scripts would not take into account all production bonuses given by traits.
• Fixed certain megastructure construction positions.
• Planet automation can now use resources from the shared stockpile even when not part of a sector.
• Fixed some cases where you would get popups that instantly disappeared while being in a federation.
• Fixed DLC icons in the Multiplayer lobby sometimes escaping outside of their container.
• Fixed Ancrel.4078 "Fire" event triggering for species that don't eat food.
• Fixed order of repaired ringworld segments for ruined and partially ruined ringworlds.
• Added emissive_recolor_crunch on some ships and turrets that lacked it
• Deviant drones no longer provide trade value based off their living standards.
• Gestalts can no longer get the Numistic Data Modeling tech.
• Fixed rare case where the empire flag would be randomized for empires created in MP.
• Fixed certain colony designation effects not having Planetary Ascension multipliers applied to them,
• Fixed a bug where empires could sometimes (e.g. on revolts) end up registering as owning more starbases than they actually did for a time.
• Fixed the ship reinforce button sometimes telling you repeatedly that there are no available shipyards.
• Enrolled engineers in the Curator's seminar on "Ringworld Repairs and You!" (Repaired ringworlds from the shattered ring origin and alpha refuge no longer have display issues).
• The shard will no longer inform the player twice about its demise.
• Fixed an issue where the list of supporters for an upcoming resolution in the Galactic Community didn't refresh correctly when clicking between two Resolutions with the same number of supporters.
• Fixed armies being mistaken for buildings in some build queue tooltips
• Here Be Dragons empires are now less amazed to see an Ether Drake (it's still a remarkable occurrence, but not something the likes of which they've never seen before)
• Fixed an issue where only one pop would switch jobs when shift-clicking to change job priority
• Sectors released as subjects by empires with the Pompous Purist civic will have the civic removed.
• Fixed some issues with AI Uprising Empires, where the created empire would have unreasonably large fleets, but could also immediately go bankrupt in several resources.
• Fixed issue with scrollbars ending up outside of the technology window in the "researched” tab of the technology view.
• Fixed Starbase triggered station modifiers not always applying properly (which means that now e.g. Offworld Trading Companies have an effect again)
• Fixed some cases where countries would have policies set that they were not meant to be allowed to choose.
• Fixed players being unable to replace e.g. a Mining District with an Industrial District if they were already replacing two Generator Districts with Industrial Districts.
• Fixed scrollbar for DLC feature descriptions not being reset.
• Fixed unlocalized DLC names in Multiplayer lobby.
• Fixed tooltips for Mortal Initiates.
• Fixed truncated data percentage in fleet view (in simple chinese).
• Fixed fleet orders and activity text localisation overlaps.
• Non-Disclosure Agreements in the Subterfuge traditions now correctly states that it increases Infiltration Required for hostile operations, rather than saying it increased the cost.
• Added alternate text and event rewards for when Gestalt empires with the Doomsday origin colonize their first planet.
• Transit Hubs no longer have incorrect and outdated text referring to previous versions of the automatic resettlement system.
• Improved tooltips for Plunder wargoal.
• Fixed federation background not rendering correctly
• Fallen Empires spawned from the Scion origin have the correct graphical culture.
• Fixed some issues where Artificers had the Artisan icon in certain texts
• Fixed missing modifier icon for Ancient Trading Route
• Fixed a rendering issue with drop pods.
• Fixed a rendering issue with the mammalian orbital habitat.
• Fixed some megastructures not animating properly.
• Fixed hyperlane shader.

###################
Modding
###################
Script Values, Variables and Modifiers:

• • Added scripted_modifier directory where you can define new modifiers you can use in static_modifiers and apply via modifier:<modifier>
  • Solved issues where certain modifiers (or static modifiers in modifier fields) were not useable in certain places due to load order issues
  • Added the ability to use mult = value:script_value in triggered modifiers
  • Added support for “square = yes”, “square_root = yes”and “pow = x” in script values
  • The game will no longer spit out errors about event targets if you try to feed a parameter with decimal places (e.g. 0.5) into a script value
  • Added trigger check_economic_production_modifier_for_job to simplify job weights; rolled out script values across job weight calculations
  • Amended the distance_to_empire to support use of script values (both it in them and them in it)
• Agreements, Subject Types and other Subjugation Topics:
  • Added new 'agreement' scope type
  • Added new database in common/agreement_presets for scripting presets of subject agreements
  • Added new database in common/agreement_term_values for scripting different options for subject agreement terms
  • Added new static database in common/agreement_terms for scripting terms for subject agreements
  • Replaced triggers can_be_subject, is_subject_type, and has_tributary with as scripted triggers
  • Added new 'subjects' trigger to check how many subjects a country has, regardless of agreement preset
  • Added agreement_event as an event type, along with an agreement_event effect
  • Added on_agreement_change_accepted on action that triggers when a subject agreement negotiation has been accepted
  • Added remove_secret_fealty effect to remove a secret fealty pact between two countries
  • Added trigger has_secret_fealty_with to check if there is a secret fealty between two empires
  • Add 'has_monthly_loyalty' trigger to check a subject's monthly loyalty
  • Add 'has_loyalty' trigger to check a subject's loyalty
  • Added an agreement_preset trigger for checking the selected preset in the agreement scope
  • Added new effect for setting the preset of a subject agreement
  • Added the effect set_agreement_terms for setting the terms of a subject agreement
  • Added a trigger to check if a subject agreement has an active specialization for a specified specialist type
  • Added a trigger to check the specialist level of a subject agreement
  • Added a trigger to check if a subject agreement has a specific specialist perk active
  • Added use_demanded_terms parameter to set_subject_of effect for applying agreement terms of previously demanded agreement diplo action
• Added highly scriptable Situations system with many flexible parameters, effects and triggers
  • Situations are now their own scope (accessible via “any_situation”)
  • You can fire a new Situation via start_situation effect
  • The properties of the Situation are customizable in the common/situations folder. A documentation file provides full information on what parameters are available within the system (e.g. how fast the Situation progresses, what happens at various stages of it, and how the interface should look)
• Added ImGui UI System
  • DearImGui is a third party UI development tool that helps us rapidly develop debug UIs.
  • Use “ImGui show” command to view a list of available views.
  • Use “ImGui show <view name>” to open an ImGui view.
  • Current release contains demo views and a “fleets” view for viewing internal fleet and ship data.
• You can now specify a pop faction as the location of your event and the button will take you there.
• Added scripted checks to diplomatic actions such that it is possible to forbid AI from doing diplomatic actions via script.
• Country types can now be given limited_military_construction and limited_leaders, which will let them build fleets and hire leaders but bypasses most other construction.
• Turned effects store_galactic_community_leader_backup_data and restore_galactic_community_leader_backup_data into scripted effects using new, more flexible effects for storing and restoring backup data of a country
• Added on_colony_yearly_pulse
• Added on_colony_25_years_old on_action
• Added planet_garrison_strength trigger
• Converted has_citizenship_rights from a scripted trigger into a trigger. This makes its performance significantly better (useful as it is checked a lot)
• Added disable_building and ruin_building effects
• You can now use num_districts in country scope
• Global script variables can now be accessed in localization with $@VariableName$
• Added "direction = corewards/rimwards" parameter to spawn_system
• Added trigger to check if a country has a Secret Fealty pact from a subject of the target country
• Error logs within scripted effects and triggers will now have useful file locations again
• Shifted script for how many of each ship an AI wants to build from country_types to ship_sizes.
• Shifted script for which armies an AI wants to build to the army_types entries from country_types
• It is now possible to limit which ships an aura will affect by using a 'limit' trigger in the aura block of the ship component script
• Add support for scoping to last_created_design
• Add script lists for owned ship designs
• Added remove_ship_design and remove_global_ship_design effects
• Added modifiers ship_friendly_territory_fire_rate_mult, ship_friendly_territory_accuracy_add, ship_friendly_territory_accuracy_mult, ship_friendly_territory_evasion_add, ship_friendly_territory_evasion_mult, ship_friendly_territory_shield_add, ship_friendly_territory_shield_mult, ship_friendly_territory_tracking_add, ship_friendly_territory_tracking_mult that is only active while in a friendly territory
• Added count_starbase_buildings trigger
• System scope is now supported on count_starbase_buildings and count_starbase_modules.
• Added owner_type option to buildings to specify if a building is a holding or not
• Added effects add_starbase_component and remove_starbase_component to add and remove ship components to starbases that are standalone from modules and buildings
• Added empire and ship wide windup modifiers for all bypass types. Following the "mod_<bypass_type>_<empire|ship>_windup format
• Added quantum catapult modifiers
• Added on_pop_resettled on_action
• Added the ability to do country_add_ethic = random
• Added triggers num_researched_techs_of_tier and can_research_tier
• Added a replaceable block to starbase modules taking scope From: Starbase, FromFrom: Starbase.Owner
• Added a script folder common/tradable_actions that can be used for scripting actions that can be traded in trade deals
• Improved performance of checking “all” on count_x script lists, and also fixed some cases where it was not possible for it to return true.
• Added define for how long the AI will wait before proposing a federation law change after a change in that category has been proposed: AI_FEDERATION_PROPOSE_LAW_CATEGORY_COOLDOWN

 

[Space Satan]

Honestly I coulв but this DLC for relays only. Endlessly moving fleets to some shitholes on a fringes of your empire drove me crazy to the point where I stated playing shattered rings to concentrate my empire in as few systems as possible.

 

[Average Manatee]

Honestly I coulв but this DLC for relays only. Endlessly moving fleets to some shitholes on a fringes of your empire drove me crazy to the point where I stated playing shattered rings to concentrate my empire in as few systems as possible.

Nice of Paradox to sell us DLC to fix problems they created (fleets being so slow that it takes years to get anywhere). Kind of annoying that they created the problem *checks calender* 4 years ago and are only now fixing it.

 

[Riel]

Honestly I coulв but this DLC for relays only. Endlessly moving fleets to some shitholes on a fringes of your empire drove me crazy to the point where I stated playing shattered rings to concentrate my empire in as few systems as possible.

Nice of Paradox to sell us DLC to fix problems they created (fleets being so slow that it takes years to get anywhere). Kind of annoying that they created the problem *checks calender* 4 years ago and are only now fixing it.

I can understand you being frustrated about it, but they certainly did it for a reason and not just to get some money from you 4 years later. Amazing as it was, the 3 original different star travel modes were awfully unbalanced and also overcoming the long distances of space travel is supposed to be a challenge. Actually being able to bear all you power into a single spot at will as you could so very easily do from day 1 with the gate travel system is the perfect recipe for murder-balling, a very stale game play if you ask me.

 

[Average Manatee]

Space RTS games aren't meant to be balanced, and certainly current Stellaris is massively imbalanced. There are infinitely many better ways to deal with the different FTL types than removing 2 of them.

Everyone playing currently still doomstacks because it's the only way to win. Nothing was gained except making wars more tedious as it takes a year of time to get your doomstack to where the enemy doomstack is attacking.

Furthermore even the slow fleet speed is unrelated to the FTL change to begin with, because forcing hyperspace to move in sublight speed for 95% of the time was a separate change. Hyperspace was much, much faster in 1.0 Stellaris. This change on its own also makes hyperspace drive improvements useless since it only applies to the 5% of time you are in hyperspace.

 

[Space Satan]

I remember "three diferent FTL types". It was wormholes raping every other FTL and waging war against wormhole player was a nightmare because he can attack EVERYWHERE, there were no safe spaces. And dropping 100k fleet on your systems, blasting every building and then retreating back to jump again was a routine. Fucking thank you I will do with hyperlanes. At least now I can specialize my worlds instead of turning every world into Cadia.

 

[Average Manatee]

I recall wormholes actually being by far the weakest lategame because your fleets took more and more time to create their wormhole portals. If you were fighting the crisis (or another player with a crisis-level fleet) then your fleet of comparable strength took half a year per jump, and if any strategic condition changed and you needed to order a new jump then you restarted the countdown. Then it's a half year to jump back and a half year to jump to the next system to attack.

There was some kind of exploit attached to this. I think you could start summoning a portal with a small fleet and merge a larger fleet into it or something. If Paradox has just fixed that then wormholes would have been almost completely defenseless in lategame fights. From there it'd be possible to balance it out by making the base warp time longer and the increase with fleet size smaller.

 

[curry]

Is this game still shit?

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Is this game still shit?

it's good for what it is, but I don't think there've been any dramatic improvements.

 

[Ravielsk]

I remember "three diferent FTL types". It was wormholes raping every other FTL and waging war against wormhole player was a nightmare because he can attack EVERYWHERE, there were no safe spaces. And dropping 100k fleet on your systems, blasting every building and then retreating back to jump again was a routine. Fucking thank you I will do with hyperlanes. At least now I can specialize my worlds instead of turning every world into Cadia.

Thing is that its still in the game. Jump drives do the exact same thing and eventually you will either have to squish your empire into a couple systems or turn them into Cadia(which you technically cannot do because defensive options have been gutted). The problem is still there it was just moved to a later stage of the game.

 

[Riel]

Everyone playing currently still doomstacks because it's the only way to win. Nothing was gained except making wars more tedious as it takes a year of time to get your doomstack to where the enemy doomstack is attacking.

Doom stack is only as good as you say it is if you can achieve a decisive blow quickly, that's very difficult to pull out except in the early game when empires are very small, later defeated enemy fleets we'll always have somewhere safe to retreat to to repair and if your doom stack is busy grabbing territory and bombing planets to make land invasion easier chances are that "defeated" enemy doom stack will slip past your own into your home lands.

Furthermore even the slow fleet speed is unrelated to the FTL change to begin with, because forcing hyperspace to move in sub-light speed for 95% of the time was a separate change. Hyperspace was much, much faster in 1.0 Stellaris. This change on its own also makes hyperspace drive improvements useless since it only applies to the 5% of time you are in hyperspace.

While sub-light speed is more important than hyper engines early in the game this is a lot more balanced later in the game, when traversing a star system is fast and hyper charging takes longer due to big fleets then the hyper upgrade is a lot more important, anyway it's not like you have to chose between upgrading sub-light and hyper so it's pretty much irrelevant.

Also do remember there's Warp Jump Engines and Star Gates, both very relevant for latish game, though not without its drawbacks.

And in this patch we will get Hyper Relays which I understand will allow you to build "star roads" that link contiguous stars so travel between them behaves like Hyperspace used to behave in 1.0, that is jump without having to traverse the star well.

 

[Ibn Sina]

No matter how many layers of sprinkles and cream they try to add to this turd, it will always remain shit and stinks of shit. The game has been in a downward spiral the moment Wiz got his fat disgusting hands on it and has not recovered since then.

 

[Axioms]

Was it ever that great though? Paradox fell into the trap of "story based gameplay" but without history to back them up.

 

[Average Manatee]

Is this game still shit?

Yes but patches have made it a weird kaleidoscope of different flavors of shit.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

waging war against wormhole player was a nightmare because he can attack EVERYWHERE

all they had to do was attaching an area of influence to ftl inhibitors, forcing any ftl targeting another system under that influence to be rerouted to the closest inhibited system. but no, they instead chopped off two thirds of the available engines and soon off system defenses were gone too. damn, i loved so much to stuff my systems with minefields and such (modded, vanilla were absolutely useless).

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

defensive options have been gutted

Yeah, not being able to mine chokepoint systems with a half dozen military starbases really sucks. At best, you have the one in the center that you have to hope the AI can't find its way around.

waging war against wormhole player was a nightmare because he can attack EVERYWHERE

all they had to do was attaching an area of influence to ftl inhibitors, forcing any ftl targeting another system under that influence to be rerouted to the closest inhibited system. but no, they instead chopped off two thirds of the available engines and soon off system defenses were gone too. damn, i loved so much to stuff my systems with minefields and such (modded, vanilla were absolutely useless).

And this was what the game should have been. There should have been techs that were so diverse no player could possibly defend against all of them from the start. You should be able to dig in and turn a single system into Space Normandy.

That's sci fi. I want my fleet to get wrecked by a cloaked minefield because I haven't researched the tech to detect them, or to be able to wipe out enemy fleets who don't have the shields to defend against my new lasers.

What I don't want is what the game is always in danger of being watered down into, which is dozens of techs which are basically just +1 to the same handful of techs you get at the start.

 

[Storyfag]

defensive options have been gutted

Yeah, not being able to mine chokepoint systems with a half dozen military starbases really sucks. At best, you have the one in the center that you have to hope the AI can't find its way around.

To be fair, once you research FTL inhibitors, the AI *cannot* go around that central starbase. It has to wreck it to be able to proceed to other systems. Not that it's any good. MAYBE the changes to defence platforms will make fortifications work, but I kinda doubt it.

 

[Riel]

defensive options have been gutted

Yeah, not being able to mine chokepoint systems with a half dozen military starbases really sucks. At best, you have the one in the center that you have to hope the AI can't find its way around.

To be fair, once you research FTL inhibitors, the AI *cannot* go around that central starbase. It has to wreck it to be able to proceed to other systems. Not that it's any good. MAYBE the changes to defence platforms will make fortifications work, but I kinda doubt it.

With Unyielding tradition starbases become quite strong, if you add some weapon platform (at a discount btw) they actually have the upper hand against fleets. Unyielding also offers some extra advantages such as extra starbase capacity which can be used for extra forts or other very interesting investments such as mooring stations to get more naval capacity.

 

[Ravielsk]

To be fair, once you research FTL inhibitors, the AI *cannot* go around that central starbase. It has to wreck it to be able to proceed to other systems. Not that it's any good. MAYBE the changes to defence platforms will make fortifications work, but I kinda doubt it.

It will not because the starbases on their own are far too weak and building defense stations takes too much time and resources which are always inevitably 100% lost in a battle because the cannot escape to another station like ships. The only time I was ever able to properly fortify a chokepoint in 2.0 was with a mod called starbases expanded that simply added a bunch of weapon platforms that made those starbases actually powerful enough to repel a moderately strong fleet but again due to sheer time investment I could never squeeze out more than one at a time.

To fix anything they would have to move defense platforms to the same tab as ships(so multiple could be deployed at once). Reduce cost and built time by about 50-75% and make them persistent(a.k.a they are just disabled after defeat). And even then they would be barely worth it outside of your capital.

 

[coldcrow]

It's only feasible if you play heavily modded games, which add plenty of modifiers helpful to a starbase turtling strategy. There is just too few weak ones of them in vanilla (- cost,- build time, + amount etc)

 

[what am i doing]

Was it ever that great though? Paradox fell into the trap of "story based gameplay" but without history to back them up.

Rather, without writing to back them up. Making a procgen galaxy instead of a hand-crafted one was their main mistake.

 

[Riel]

It's only feasible if you play heavily modded games, which add plenty of modifiers helpful to a starbase turtling strategy. There is just too few weak ones of them in vanilla (- cost,- build time, + amount etc)

Fake news: Unyielding tradition not only allows cheaper starbases and defences, allow for more to be built of both, reduces maintenance of both but it also increases damage by 33%

Spoiler

• +2 Starbase capacity
• +50% Starbase Upgrade Speed

• +25% Defense Army Health
• +3 Unity per Stronghold

• 
  +33% Starbase Health
• 
  +33% Starbase Damage
• +33% Defense platform damage
• +33% Defense platform hull points

• −25% Orbital Bombardment Damage Received
• −25% War exhaustion gain
• +25% Hostile claim influence cost

• +2 Starbase capacity
• −50% Starbase Upgrade Cost[2]
• +4 Hostile Operation Difficulty for Sabotage Starbase

• +15% Ship Fire Rate within the empire's borders
• +33% Ship Build Speed while in a defensive war

• +50% Defense platform cap
• 
  −20% Starbase Upkeep
• Can create Martial Alliance federations if Federations DLC is installed

And let's not forget a few techs that help them both in terms of cost and hitpoint

Finally I would like to note that doesn't mean they can withstand anything, but they are now quite cheaper than an equivalent fleet, but yes, and what is worse shall it be defeated you lose all platforms and the base becomes an enemy obstacle that is quickly repaired and for free. That said space forts without defence platforms are really cheap and offer an easy way to defend choke points, alone or with a supporting fleet, but obviously a lot smaller than you would need without the station. Weapon platforms are a lot less useful because they are easily destroyed and I only consider building them is desperate situations, with super discounts to cost, when at maximum fleet capacity and when fully upgraded, preferably all of the three at the same time.

Also the unyielding tradition is one of the best deals, it doesn't jsut make space bases and defence platforms better and cheaper, it provides bonuses to ships in defensive wars, allows for more space bases that can be used for many useful things and not just to be defensive forts, like mooring station, trade collectors.... but feel free to ignore them if that's your cup of tea, it's just not correct to say Space bases and Defence platform are as shitty as they once were.

 

[Average Manatee]

The problem with starbases is that they are 100% binary. Either they defeat enemy fleets, autorepair in a month, and the enemy will repeatedly throw fleets at it endlessly until they've lost ever ship available. Or they get steamrolled and 90% of the enemy fleet survives due to the retreat mechanic and is fully healed up next month. If you're playing on easy difficulties it's usually the former and if you're playing on harder difficulties its usually the latter.

On the military side, no evasion really sucks and the additional military platforms are implemented completely retardedly since they are separate targets with very high DPS and very low HP that get targetted and killed because of no evasion. They are really not alloy-effective.

On the non-military side, there's a big problem IMO where only machines and hives can really benefit from starbases economically. Normal empire get trade, which is a very weak mechanic and you don't even need to build trade starbases if you have enough starbases to put on every planet. If you ARE a machine or hive then Unyielding is indeed blatantly overpowered, you can literally feed and power your whole early to midgame empire with 10-15 starbases.