Stellaris - To Serve Man - The Something Awful Forums

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Baronjutter: Dec 31, 2007; "Tiny Trains"

Grevlek posted:

So I'm going to do my own empire splitting here and try and change the discussion.

I hate that the fleets are visible in Space! I think having the actual ship models up and flying around is super stupid looking, and probably causes a significant amount of the lag experienced as the game goes on.

I think a fleet should just be a 'Point' or 'Icon' of some type, and if you want to see all of your models and fleet's glory, you click into it and get a little 'window' viewer of that fleet.

Space Combat should be represented on the 'system map' as a single 'battle point' where the two fleet icons meet, and any of the modeling of the combat that needs to occur can happen 'off-map' in the 'window' viewer of the fleet.

A bonus to that would be, you could have that 'fleet window' open to watch the battle, and do other things in your empire.

I understand why Paradox chose to focus on the 'war' aspect for this expansion, but it really seems like 'war' is the only thing to do in this game. Beyond that, I don't think they really fixed war, but we'll see. I do like the changes in principle, as it will resolve the deathstack issue, but we'll see.

COUNTERS. IN. SPACE.
I agree but a big appeal for a lot of people is seeing the pew pew space battles in real time and was a central focus of the game's marketing and design.

# ? Feb 7, 2018 19:18

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# ? May 14, 2024 01:44

turn off the TV: Aug 4, 2010; moderately annoying

Chalks posted:

I don't think there's any problem with an empire split mechanic that's relatively easy for the human player to avoid encountering. Empire splits on large AI opponents are very interesting in themselves, it doesn't have to happen to the player to be a valuable mechanic.

At the moment rebellions are generally just one or two systems that get immediately eaten by the original empire. Occasionally they offer an opportunity to snipe them as a vassal but otherwise they may as well not be there. Larger splits would be far more interesting.

I don't think that they should necessarily be easy or difficult to avoid, but actually be hooked into the game well enough that it's something which you can play around with. It's why I really like the ideas behind the system that Rome 2 got last year. In Rome 2 you can very, very easily get yourself a civil war, but the causes are hooked into the basic mechanics of the game and you're given enough tools to deal with the situation that it never feels like a civil war or unrest is something that's just out of your hands. If that system was translated into Stellaris, you could have situations where you have a very, very skilled admiral, but they're the member of a dissident faction that has had its ethics shift apart from your empire's. During a war you could find yourself in a situation where that incredibly skilled admiral would provide a significant advantage, but if you give them too much power they could use the forces under their command to launch a military coup, maybe even bringing planets dominated by his faction's pops under his own fold.

I feel like there's a lot of room for giving the player agency over the internal politics and potential fracturing of their empire that would go a long way to making the whole product feel more cohesive.

Baronjutter posted:

COUNTERS. IN. SPACE.
I agree but a big appeal for a lot of people is seeing the pew pew space battles in real time and was a central focus of the game's marketing and design.

This is what really confuses me. Outside of purifiers and exterminators most empires aren't going to be fighting constant wars, and I don't know why people wanted more updates for warfare instead of one focusing on politics or diplomacy to fill the content gaps of like 75-90% of regular gameplay.

turn off the TV fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Feb 7, 2018

# ? Feb 7, 2018 19:19

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

Zore posted:

that sounds loving amazing.

Yeah I'd play that fuckin' game.

I mean I don't really see what the difference is between empire stability and, like, wars.

If you expand a bunch and don't build a military then someone will declare war on you and take your territory. If you expand a bunch and grossly mismanage your territory then it will try to split off? But you have other things to spend minerals on so that's why you might not spend as much on military development, or you want to risk running your sectors a certain way at the risk of them becoming harder to control? The game's about tradeoffs, that's what makes it a strategy game, that's where the decision making comes from.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Feb 7, 2018

# ? Feb 7, 2018 19:26

AG3: Feb 4, 2004; Ask me about spending hundreds of dollars on Mass Effect 2 emoticons and Avatars.; Oven Wrangler

Bold Robot posted:

In theory you could edit the save, but I don�t think there is any info out there on what you need to actually edit within the save file. I tried to figure it out a year or so ago but couldn�t, though I didn�t try super hard.

It remains a mystery why they haven�t made it so that two empires can�t share the same primary color. Screenshots of 2.0 show that this still hasn�t been fixed, although the use of secondary color for the border strip will make things a lot better.

I think it's the "colors" part of this, it's been a while since I did it:

code:

empire_flag={
			icon={
				category="ornate"
				file="flag_ornate_4.dds"
			}
			background={
				category="backgrounds"
				file="triangle_split.dds"
			}
			colors={
				"red_orange"
				"black"
				"null"
				"null"

Each empire should have a section like that, so just find out what yours looks like and make sure your neighbours don't have the same. At least I THINK it's this section, it's been a really long time.

# ? Feb 7, 2018 19:30

Shadowlyger: Nov 5, 2009; ElvUI super fan at your service!

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ConfusedUs posted:

First look at Cherryh jump drives

https://twitter.com/Martin_Anward/status/961275203778170887

That's a big change, but I think I like it. It's a tactical decision that can let you bypass defenses or launch sneak attacks, rather than an always-on ability.

-50%? Well that's fuckin' useless.

# ? Feb 7, 2018 19:35

Aethernet: Jan 28, 2009; This is the Captain...

Our glorious political masters have, in their wisdom, decided to form an alliance with a rag-tag bunch of freedom fighters right when the Federation has us at a tactical disadvantage. Unsurprisingly, this has resulted in the Feds firing on our vessels...

Damn you Huxley!; Grimey Drawer

ulmont posted:

Only so good of a sneak attack if weapon damage is down 50% for 100 days though.

Given the changes to warfare, even with 50% damage debuff a fleet could easily wreck an opponent's backline and rack up war exhaustion. It appears to be designed for raiding and flanking, as well as bypassing fortifications.

# ? Feb 7, 2018 19:37

Orv: May 4, 2011

I feel like with the sensor range changes, by the time you're using jump drive to pop into an enemy empire's home systems and then sitting there for 100 days to wait to do things in case the enemy responds to you, they can probably just see you sitting there. Which I guess brings up the question if the AI can see the debuff.

# ? Feb 7, 2018 19:40

Ham Sandwiches: Jul 7, 2000

turn off the TV posted:

This is what really confuses me. Outside of purifiers and exterminators most empires aren't going to be fighting constant wars, and I don't know why people wanted more updates for warfare instead of one focusing on politics or diplomacy to fill the content gaps of like 75-90% of regular gameplay.

Like, the warfare and combat was/is beyond lovely, it basically undermines the game to the point that you have to play around it by either picking a non combat build or hold your nose and enjoy it. Combat is a part of stellaris and with the multiple FTL types, the horrid wardec system, the system ownership system, and the fleet grabass / troop logistics that you have to deal with, it's simply not fun.

The diplomacy and politics changes will most likely be in the next expansion, I have no idea why wait until like a week or two before release of the huge warfare patch to get angsty about it :shrug:

Lots of stuff in Stellaris needed work, this is how they decided to fix it

# ? Feb 7, 2018 19:41

Bold Robot: Jan 6, 2009; Be brave.

It would be kinda cool if the 50% debuff decreased linearly during the countdown, so that at first you�re really vulnerable but you slowly get stronger, rather than just being on/off.

# ? Feb 7, 2018 19:45

Baronjutter: Dec 31, 2007; "Tiny Trains"

100 days is not long in stellaris. The jump drive seems like excellent gameplay because it presents an actual interesting tactical choice that greatly depends on the situation. If you are fighting an enemy with a fleet around the size of yours you are fighting a mobile war and the jump drive is not going to be of big use. But if you are fighting an enemy with a much smaller or distracted fleet but massive static defenses the jump drive will be a game changer. Now your 20k fleet can bypass their choke point station and you only have to deal with their little 8k fleet. Or maybe you're fighting a huge empire along with allies on multiple fronts. You know the enemy fleet is on the other side of their empire fighting a big battle with your allies, so you use the chance to risk a jump past their fortresses hoping they won't have time to counter-attack before your debuff is gone.

If there wasn't a huge temporary debuff jump drives would lose any interesting tactical/situational choice. It would just be the thing you always use to bypass static defenses, rendering them mostly useless. My only concern is if the AI will know how to effectively use them, to correctly gauge the risk/reward. At the same time hope that the AI knows to prioritize enemy fleets that just jumped and try to hit them while they are recovering.

# ? Feb 7, 2018 19:45

sudo rm -rf: Aug 2, 2011; $ mv fullcommunism.sh /america $ cd /america $ ./fullcommunism.sh

VirtualStranger posted:

If the planet management mechanics are that un-fun, then they should be completely reworked instead of slapping a band-aid over the problem by forcing you to hand it off to the AI.

This is my biggest problem with the empire management aspects of the game at the moment. The pop-and-tile system turns every planet into a puzzle game that incentivizes the player to spent time and effort min-maxing their building layouts. But doing this with more than a handful of planets is tedious and time-consuming, distracting the player from other aspects of the game. The solution to this problem was to inflict the player with debilitating resource penalties until they allow the AI to do it for them. Of course, the AI isn't actually very good at it, so most players don't actually want to give it control over anything.

The game effectively encourages you to min-max planets, but then punishes you for actually trying to do it.

something can be fun and still not be scalable, especially if it requires a lot of micromanagement.

# ? Feb 7, 2018 19:48

Bold Robot: Jan 6, 2009; Be brave.