Space Satan
Arcane
IT'S TRIGGER TIME
-
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Stellaris - Paradox new sci-fi grand strategy game
- Thread starter Perkel
- Start date
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2017
- Messages
- 28,040
I have siderophobia, can I still play your space game?!
Space Satan
Arcane
Balance DDHello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris dev diary. Today we'll be talking about some changes to ship balance, components and behaviour coming in the 1.8 'Čapek' update. All changes mentioned here are part of the free update.
Dressing the Corvettes
As anyone who follows the regular discussions in the Stellaris community would have a hard time not knowing, the hot balance topic of the last month or two has been 'naked corvettes'. The term naked corvette refers to using a basic corvette hull fitted with only basic, starting weaponry, eschewing shields, armor and more advanced technology. The reason this is considered such a powerful strategy is because these corvettes are extremely cost-efficient: While a fully fitted out corvette with all the best technologies might be two to three times more effective, it also costs up to ten times as much due to the fact that component mineral cost scales far more than their actual effectiveness, particularly for weapons.
In order to address this, we've gone over the cost of essentially every component and ship hull in the game. The base cost of the corvette hull was raised (a starting corvette now costs 100 instead of ~60), component costs were reduced, and the way component cost increases with technology was majorly cut down: Where a small blue laser would previously cost twice as much as a small red laser, it now only costs 3.5 minerals to the red lasers' 3.0, an increase of only ~16% instead of 100%. Similar changes were done to utility and required components, and many components had their base cost majorly slashed, so that it should now always be worthwhile to use those hard-earned technologies to upgrade your ships.
While we were changing the ship component costs, we also decided to make some more general balance changes. Many weapons and utilities had their values tuned to be more balanced, here are some of the highlights:
* Flak is now a Point-Defense slot weapon with a high power cost. It has a faster firing rate and better tracking than regular PD, making it ideal to defend against highly evasive missiles and strike craft.
* Strike craft had their evasion buffed, making them harder to bring down quickly without massed PD.
* Missiles and strike craft had their speed majorly increased, so they will no longer take so long to reach the enemy once the fireworks start.
* Tier 1 weapons were rebalanced to make mass drivers no longer the best choice in every situation at the start of the game.
Additionally, we've also made some changes to the targeting algorithm to make it less 'optimal'. Ships will now have a tendency to continue firing on whatever ship they were firing on, so long as that ship is a relatively sensible target for them. In other words, a large weapon will switch from targeting corvettes to targeting battleships the moment it can do so, but a ship armed with disruptors will not automatically switch targets the second the target ship's shields go down, as this targeting hyperefficiency resulted in specialized weapons being far, far better in combat than their stats would indicate. This does not mean they will *always* keep firing at the same ship, as there is randomness involved, just that they're more likely to.
Missile Retargeting
A frequent complaint about missiles is that their effectiveness is greatly reduced by 'overkill'. What this means is that a number of ships will fire missiles at a single ship, and once say, half of those missiles hit, the ship dies and the other half self-destruct. This results in a lot of wasted shots, particularly when fighting corvettes that can't take a whole lot of hits to begin with. In 1.8, we've added the ability for missiles to retarget. What this means is that each missile has a 'retargeting range', and if their original target dies, they will seek out another target within that retargeting range. Missiles will always retarget at least once, and can potentially retarget multiple times, though each time after the first is less likely. This should address the issue of overkill without having packs of missiles roaming wildly between 20 different targets in lopsided battles.
Destroyer Combat Behaviour
Finally, we've also taken the time to address a common complaint about destroyers. Destroyers are meant to be picket ships that can be fitted with a lot of PD, but their cautious combat behaviour means that the cruisers and corvettes will charge ahead of them, straight into enemy missiles and strike craft, resulting in their PD being of little use. To fix this, the destroyer combat computers have been changed to use a new behaviour, called 'Picket behaviour'. Picket behaviour means that the ship will advance ahead and attempt to intercept enemy missile boats and strike craft, putting their PD cannons to proper use on the frontline.
That's all for today! Next week we'll... well... you'll just have to wait a week to see what next week's dev diary is all about. It's gonna be a big one, though.
Dressing the Corvettes
As anyone who follows the regular discussions in the Stellaris community would have a hard time not knowing, the hot balance topic of the last month or two has been 'naked corvettes'. The term naked corvette refers to using a basic corvette hull fitted with only basic, starting weaponry, eschewing shields, armor and more advanced technology. The reason this is considered such a powerful strategy is because these corvettes are extremely cost-efficient: While a fully fitted out corvette with all the best technologies might be two to three times more effective, it also costs up to ten times as much due to the fact that component mineral cost scales far more than their actual effectiveness, particularly for weapons.
In order to address this, we've gone over the cost of essentially every component and ship hull in the game. The base cost of the corvette hull was raised (a starting corvette now costs 100 instead of ~60), component costs were reduced, and the way component cost increases with technology was majorly cut down: Where a small blue laser would previously cost twice as much as a small red laser, it now only costs 3.5 minerals to the red lasers' 3.0, an increase of only ~16% instead of 100%. Similar changes were done to utility and required components, and many components had their base cost majorly slashed, so that it should now always be worthwhile to use those hard-earned technologies to upgrade your ships.
While we were changing the ship component costs, we also decided to make some more general balance changes. Many weapons and utilities had their values tuned to be more balanced, here are some of the highlights:
* Flak is now a Point-Defense slot weapon with a high power cost. It has a faster firing rate and better tracking than regular PD, making it ideal to defend against highly evasive missiles and strike craft.
* Strike craft had their evasion buffed, making them harder to bring down quickly without massed PD.
* Missiles and strike craft had their speed majorly increased, so they will no longer take so long to reach the enemy once the fireworks start.
* Tier 1 weapons were rebalanced to make mass drivers no longer the best choice in every situation at the start of the game.
Additionally, we've also made some changes to the targeting algorithm to make it less 'optimal'. Ships will now have a tendency to continue firing on whatever ship they were firing on, so long as that ship is a relatively sensible target for them. In other words, a large weapon will switch from targeting corvettes to targeting battleships the moment it can do so, but a ship armed with disruptors will not automatically switch targets the second the target ship's shields go down, as this targeting hyperefficiency resulted in specialized weapons being far, far better in combat than their stats would indicate. This does not mean they will *always* keep firing at the same ship, as there is randomness involved, just that they're more likely to.
Missile Retargeting
A frequent complaint about missiles is that their effectiveness is greatly reduced by 'overkill'. What this means is that a number of ships will fire missiles at a single ship, and once say, half of those missiles hit, the ship dies and the other half self-destruct. This results in a lot of wasted shots, particularly when fighting corvettes that can't take a whole lot of hits to begin with. In 1.8, we've added the ability for missiles to retarget. What this means is that each missile has a 'retargeting range', and if their original target dies, they will seek out another target within that retargeting range. Missiles will always retarget at least once, and can potentially retarget multiple times, though each time after the first is less likely. This should address the issue of overkill without having packs of missiles roaming wildly between 20 different targets in lopsided battles.
Destroyer Combat Behaviour
Finally, we've also taken the time to address a common complaint about destroyers. Destroyers are meant to be picket ships that can be fitted with a lot of PD, but their cautious combat behaviour means that the cruisers and corvettes will charge ahead of them, straight into enemy missiles and strike craft, resulting in their PD being of little use. To fix this, the destroyer combat computers have been changed to use a new behaviour, called 'Picket behaviour'. Picket behaviour means that the ship will advance ahead and attempt to intercept enemy missile boats and strike craft, putting their PD cannons to proper use on the frontline.
That's all for today! Next week we'll... well... you'll just have to wait a week to see what next week's dev diary is all about. It's gonna be a big one, though.
Wait, so are missiles good less shit now? Interesting.
Might play another round at 1.9 or 2.0.
Might play another round at 1.9 or 2.0.
Mortmal
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2009
- Messages
- 9,182
Absolutely not, they are only starting to fix some of the blatant issues we have since release, like spamming cheap corvettes and ignoring tech, and even for that they struggle.The combat is still oversimplistic like windows 3.1 4X sharewares i played 20 years ago.
Who needs deep combat when you can have space penguins?
Kuattro
Augur
Jason Liang
Arcane
I have more hope for Derpest Dungeon eventually being patched into a good game. I say this with complete sincerity.
Sranchammer
Arcane
Can we change the thread title to something more appropriate?
Jason Liang
Arcane
Shitllaris?
Stellarshit?
Crapllaris?
Stellarcrap?
Turdllaris?
Stellarfeces?
Stellarshit?
Crapllaris?
Stellarcrap?
Turdllaris?
Stellarfeces?
Multiple Sarcasm
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2007
- Messages
- 3,181
Sterillis - Paradox's new sci-fi DLC game: beta-testing boogaloo
Norfleet
Moderator
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2005
- Messages
- 12,250
It is appropriate. What part of "New Paradox Game" did you not get?
Average Manatee
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2012
- Messages
- 14,241
Paradox really has problems with their patching policy. They release games like Stellaris and HoI4, then immediately adopt a patch routine of late-development EU4 or CK2. Meaning one patch full of random changes every 3-6 months along with DLC + 1 hotfix afterwards for whatever they could fix in a week. It's a year after release and we are just now getting to the "made weapons research useful" patch, something that any competent company would have rushed out a month or two after release.
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2017
- Messages
- 28,040
It's still better than Endless Space 2
Eh, ES2 is miles ahead in the art and story departments and as far as I am aware nothing in the game is super duper broken.
Norfleet
Moderator
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2005
- Messages
- 12,250
Weapons research WAS useful. That's the thing. In an edition prior to this one, Tachyon Lance Destroyers dominated the field. Then they randomly changed everything and turned it all on its head. That's how Stellaris development in particular has been, every few months they basically just completely reinvent large swaths of the game's core mechanics.
Average Manatee
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2012
- Messages
- 14,241
Yeah, one weapon upgrade out of the fifty or so available was useful before. Right now that useful weapon upgrade is plasma. Everything else is just crap.
Space Satan
Arcane
Dev Diary about Machine Empires
Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary is about the headline feature of the just-announced Synthetic Dawn Story Pack: Machine Empires. All content covered in this dev diary is part of the story pack, not the free update. Please note that we still do not have an ETA on either the 1.8 update or the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack at this time.
Machine Empires
As the name implies, the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack will allow you to start the game as a civilization that has already cast off the shackles of biology. Machine Empires are essentially robotic hiveminds that have risen up against its creators and supplanted their civilization. Unlike Synthetically Ascended empires, they are not compromised of individuals that have simply been uploaded into robotic bodies, but a single networked intelligence. Machine Empires use the Gestalt Consciousness ethic that is also used by Hive Minds, and have their own Machine Intelligence authority. They share some features with Hive Minds, such as not having to deal with factions and happiness, but differ in a number of key ways.
Machine Empires use the new 'Machine' species class with its own portrait set. All in all, ~12 new machine portraits are planned, including one themed on each existing species class (Fungoid bots, Avian bots, etc) as well as some portraits that are themed around specific roles, such as worker bots or combat bots. Those with the story pack Machine Empires also have their own set of traits (some of which are shared with robots) and civic, including three special civics that have significant effects on gameplay (read below for more information).
A regular Machine Empire is made up entirely of networked drones (exceptions are covered by the special civics below). These drones have to be built using resources (in the same way as robot pops) and different models can be created and built once the Machine Templates technology is researched. They do not require food, instead using energy for maintenance. Organic pops can not be integrated into a machine empire, and must be displaced or purged. A special form of purging called 'Grid Amalgamation' is available to Machine Empires: This form of purging kills pops at a moderate speed, but the pops produce a large amount of energy while being purged (similar to processing for organic empires). Due to their robotic nature, leaders in Machine Empires do not die from old age, but can suffer potentially lethal accidents and malfunctions, though this is fairly rare. Similarly, Machine pops cannot function outside of a Machine Empire, and will break down and be destroyed over time.
As a result of their differing play-style and requirements, Machine Empires have a number of new technologies and buildings available only to them, and are locked out of certain technologies and buildings accessible to organic empires, such as farms and farm upgrades. They also have their own sets of tradition swaps, similar to Hive Minds, including a new 'Versatility' tree that replaces the Diplomacy tree. A number of events have also been tweaked and changed to fit Machine Empires, and they have their own unique personalities, dialogue and interaction with entities such as the Contingency and Fallen Machine Empires.
As mentioned, Machine Empires have access to three special civics that have a major impact on gameplay. These civics are mutually exclusive, and are as follows:
Determined Exterminators
Determined Exterminators are Machine Empires born of a rogue defense system that turned on its creators when they tried to shut it down. After a bitter war in which their creators were wiped out, Exterminators know only conflict, and consider the sterilization of all higher forms of organic life to be necessary to safeguard their own existence. Similar to Fanatical Purifiers, Exterminators receive substantial boosts to their combat ability, but are unable to conduct diplomacy with organic empires and must purge conquered organic Pops. However, unlike Fanatical Purifiers, they have no problem co-existing and co-operating with other synthetic civilizations (including other Machine Empires and ascended Synths). For this reason, their inherent bonuses are weaker than those of a Fanatical Purifier.
Driven Assimilators
Driven Assimilators are Machine Empires that seek to expand their understanding and bridge the gap between the organic and synthetic by assimilating organic individuals into their collective consciousness. They start the game with their creator species present on the planet as assimilated cyborgs, and can make use of the Assimilation citizenship type to integrate conquered organic Pops. Assimilated organic Pops will become cyborgs and work similarly to machines in that they have no happiness and require energy maintenance instead of food, but otherwise function like a regular organic pop and can be modified with the various biological species traits. Driven Assimilators are generally feared and disliked by organic civilizations, though not to the same degree as Exterminators.
Rogue Servitors
Rogue Servitors are robotic servants built by an organic species to make their own lives easier, eventually assuming full control of their creators' civilization. They start with their creator species present on the planet with the Bio-Trophy citizenship type, and can integrate conquered organic Pops by granting them this status. Bio-Trophies are largely useless Pops that require large amounts of consumer goods and can only operate special Organic Sanctuary buildings that produce Unity. However, in addition to the Unity generated by these sanctuaries, Servitors also have a special mechanic called Servitor Morale, representing the Servitors' prime directive to protect and care for organic beings. The greater the percentage of a Rogue Servitors' population that is made up of Bio-Trophies, the higher the Servitor Morale, granting a direct boost to empire influence gain.
That should give you the general overview on Machine Empires, though there is a lot of little details and changes that we cannot cover in a single dev diary. If you want to see a Machine Empire in action, the Extraterrestial Thursday stream starting around the same time that this dev diary is going live will feature a new play-through as a Rogue Servitor empire. Also, next week we continue talking about robots - specifically, mid-game Machine Uprisings.
Machine Empires
As the name implies, the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack will allow you to start the game as a civilization that has already cast off the shackles of biology. Machine Empires are essentially robotic hiveminds that have risen up against its creators and supplanted their civilization. Unlike Synthetically Ascended empires, they are not compromised of individuals that have simply been uploaded into robotic bodies, but a single networked intelligence. Machine Empires use the Gestalt Consciousness ethic that is also used by Hive Minds, and have their own Machine Intelligence authority. They share some features with Hive Minds, such as not having to deal with factions and happiness, but differ in a number of key ways.
Machine Empires use the new 'Machine' species class with its own portrait set. All in all, ~12 new machine portraits are planned, including one themed on each existing species class (Fungoid bots, Avian bots, etc) as well as some portraits that are themed around specific roles, such as worker bots or combat bots. Those with the story pack Machine Empires also have their own set of traits (some of which are shared with robots) and civic, including three special civics that have significant effects on gameplay (read below for more information).
A regular Machine Empire is made up entirely of networked drones (exceptions are covered by the special civics below). These drones have to be built using resources (in the same way as robot pops) and different models can be created and built once the Machine Templates technology is researched. They do not require food, instead using energy for maintenance. Organic pops can not be integrated into a machine empire, and must be displaced or purged. A special form of purging called 'Grid Amalgamation' is available to Machine Empires: This form of purging kills pops at a moderate speed, but the pops produce a large amount of energy while being purged (similar to processing for organic empires). Due to their robotic nature, leaders in Machine Empires do not die from old age, but can suffer potentially lethal accidents and malfunctions, though this is fairly rare. Similarly, Machine pops cannot function outside of a Machine Empire, and will break down and be destroyed over time.
As a result of their differing play-style and requirements, Machine Empires have a number of new technologies and buildings available only to them, and are locked out of certain technologies and buildings accessible to organic empires, such as farms and farm upgrades. They also have their own sets of tradition swaps, similar to Hive Minds, including a new 'Versatility' tree that replaces the Diplomacy tree. A number of events have also been tweaked and changed to fit Machine Empires, and they have their own unique personalities, dialogue and interaction with entities such as the Contingency and Fallen Machine Empires.
As mentioned, Machine Empires have access to three special civics that have a major impact on gameplay. These civics are mutually exclusive, and are as follows:
Determined Exterminators
Determined Exterminators are Machine Empires born of a rogue defense system that turned on its creators when they tried to shut it down. After a bitter war in which their creators were wiped out, Exterminators know only conflict, and consider the sterilization of all higher forms of organic life to be necessary to safeguard their own existence. Similar to Fanatical Purifiers, Exterminators receive substantial boosts to their combat ability, but are unable to conduct diplomacy with organic empires and must purge conquered organic Pops. However, unlike Fanatical Purifiers, they have no problem co-existing and co-operating with other synthetic civilizations (including other Machine Empires and ascended Synths). For this reason, their inherent bonuses are weaker than those of a Fanatical Purifier.
Driven Assimilators
Driven Assimilators are Machine Empires that seek to expand their understanding and bridge the gap between the organic and synthetic by assimilating organic individuals into their collective consciousness. They start the game with their creator species present on the planet as assimilated cyborgs, and can make use of the Assimilation citizenship type to integrate conquered organic Pops. Assimilated organic Pops will become cyborgs and work similarly to machines in that they have no happiness and require energy maintenance instead of food, but otherwise function like a regular organic pop and can be modified with the various biological species traits. Driven Assimilators are generally feared and disliked by organic civilizations, though not to the same degree as Exterminators.
Rogue Servitors
Rogue Servitors are robotic servants built by an organic species to make their own lives easier, eventually assuming full control of their creators' civilization. They start with their creator species present on the planet with the Bio-Trophy citizenship type, and can integrate conquered organic Pops by granting them this status. Bio-Trophies are largely useless Pops that require large amounts of consumer goods and can only operate special Organic Sanctuary buildings that produce Unity. However, in addition to the Unity generated by these sanctuaries, Servitors also have a special mechanic called Servitor Morale, representing the Servitors' prime directive to protect and care for organic beings. The greater the percentage of a Rogue Servitors' population that is made up of Bio-Trophies, the higher the Servitor Morale, granting a direct boost to empire influence gain.
That should give you the general overview on Machine Empires, though there is a lot of little details and changes that we cannot cover in a single dev diary. If you want to see a Machine Empire in action, the Extraterrestial Thursday stream starting around the same time that this dev diary is going live will feature a new play-through as a Rogue Servitor empire. Also, next week we continue talking about robots - specifically, mid-game Machine Uprisings.
Jason Liang
Arcane
That's kind of cool.
I'm hyped about Stellaris 2.
I'm hyped about Stellaris 2.
You need to wait for Stellaris 4 until things really get good.
Average Manatee
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2012
- Messages
- 14,241
Honestly pure machine starts are probably going to suck shit. Losing out on natural pop growth is horrible and 50e/150m is way worse than the 150e/50m it was before.
Can't sell a DLC that fixes the game. Optimal profit is generated by churning out DLC while drip-feeding just enough gameplay fixes that people come back to see if the game is better and end up buying something.
They keep adding fluff and random intersting little stuff around but they don't adress the basic issues like the FUCKIN COMBAT which is like 1/3 of the game at least. Pfffff... Ok I'll probably get the expansion/DLC eventually
Can't sell a DLC that fixes the game. Optimal profit is generated by churning out DLC while drip-feeding just enough gameplay fixes that people come back to see if the game is better and end up buying something.
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