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Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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GlyphGryph posted:

Trying to do it with a science ship before was simultaenously super slow

GlyphGryph posted:

you couldnt previously use science ships to explore.

You can explore with science ships in 1.9 just like with corvettes, it's just pricier. So in 2.0 firing a ship off into the unknown will be the same mechanically, it's just a much bigger capital investment so no longer a no-brainer. If you do want to rapidly forge into the unknown though unlocking Discovery for the boost to science ship evasion is both thematic and a good idea.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2018 13:47

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 14:48

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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GlyphGryph posted:

The thing that made corvettes slow and annoying was having to manually click everywhere you needed them to go and plot out there routes. Which doesnt change for science except they are programmed to behave like idiots if they ever encounter a hostile.

...they jump out of the system and try to repath to their destination?

# ¿ Feb 20, 2018 13:57

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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GlyphGryph posted:

I never found this to actually work.

The only weird thing I've seen is them repathing around the other side of the galactic core because there was no other route back, which is good for exploring!

OwlFancier posted:

Because corvette exploration isn't a meaningful mechanic. it's something you do every game before you even unpause it and never really have to do again. As you said, it's free, it involves a lot of clicking, but there's no reason to ever not do it and no reason to do it any differently from game to game. It's part of the game setup, essentially.

Making exploration a thing is far more true when it's something you have to keep doing and when doing it is an investment. Do you build more science ships and hire more leaders? Do you build something else and spend the money on something else? Which way you explore is more significant when you have to choose a way to go rather than just going all ways with all your ships.

This is what I'm looking forward to. Carefully nosing around my local neighbourhood and slowly expanding my knowledge outward or making risky, targeted long-distance probe attempts in search of resources or allies, without thinking in the back of my head "...or I could just ejaculate corvettes everywhere".

# ¿ Feb 20, 2018 14:06

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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canepazzo posted:

Since Utopia (I think, could be Synthetic Dawn), ships on evasive automatically avoid systems with hostiles.

I wish I could flag a hostile system as Really Hostile so random reinforcements didn't occasionally path through dimensional horrors and the like

# ¿ Feb 20, 2018 14:12

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Tomn posted:

I seem to recall from one of the streams that this is a thing now in 2.0, you can designate a system as hostile so that pathing automatically avoids it.

I wish I had a big bag of money.

TheDeadlyShoe posted:

there's a tech for autoexplore

I think they mean explore but don't scan. Which I would also like TBH.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2018 14:20

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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GlyphGryph posted:

There is a tech for autosurvey and it was absurdly late in the tech tree and super expensive last time i played (maybe its been moved earlier and made cheaper), if theres a tech for any type of actual exploration (and surveying is not that) it would be super nice but it must be new and frankly I doubt it.

Like I am not opposed to slower paced science ship exploration if they were giving us the tools to do that but it sounds like they arent doing anything of the sort so yeah in lieue of that I will at least miss it being possible to do it cheaply if not in a particularly engaging way.

In 1.9 it's a tier 1 gated behind the +5% research speed one with a time based multiplier. Dump a +computers scientist into Physics and you'll have it within a decade. I'm hoping with the revised tech tree it'll show up sooner.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2018 14:26

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:

well, you can do corvette exploration (as it were) as soon as you get the first sensor tech. not sure how hard that'll be.

I mean a shop stance that's "go visit every unvisited system" instead of "go scan every unscanned planet".

# ¿ Feb 20, 2018 14:29

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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OwlFancier posted:

I don't really think there's very much final frontiery about space if you just shotgun what are essentially free probes out in every direction and have half the galaxy mapped before you finish your first colony.

Like literally just replace exploration with an automatic expanding sensor centered on the homeworld at that point.

Corvette bad, but having decided you do want to risk sending a pricey ship with a pricey scientist to the other side of the galaxy to see what's in The Omega Sector it'd be nice to be able to have "visit every system in The Omega Sector and then I'll tell you which ones to look at closer" supported less painfully than a detailed examination of every planet vs clicking each system manually.

Think of it like mission protocols. If I want to make contact with someone I'll fire a ship on a straight-line trip around the core, with some waypoints along the way to keep it in track. If I want to scout out an area I'll click all the stars in the area. If I want to find somewhere to colonise I'll follow up an area scout by clicking "survey" on all the systems with planets. Once you've unlocked automatic exploration why /not/ make these one-button exploration profiles called "Planetary Survey Corps", "Colonisation Initiative", and "SETI Protocols"?

With the new sensors/hyperlanes the area survey could be a right-click "everything within X jumps of this system".

# ¿ Feb 20, 2018 15:53

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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DatonKallandor posted:

I also don't understand how throwing corvettes at poo poo is somehow good exploration, yet doing the exact same thing with science vessels is somehow not. And you can still do corvette exploration you just need +1 sensor range.

OwlFancier posted:

What do you even mean by "exploratory missions" because no, I don't understand what's interesting about throwing free corvettes into crystals randomly while almost immediately having everything mapped out, you're doing neither any exploration nor does it matter what happens to them.

GlypgGryph doesn't like corvette exploration, they're annoyed because they saw people being hype about exploration, also got hype because they thought the lovely, kludgey, but at least it was cheap clickfest was being replaced, and then found out that no, it's just not cheap anymore. It's a good change because now choosing to explore wide and early is an actual mechanical choice with a not insignificant trade-off, but if you do decide that's how you want to play it's still going to be just as painful a clickfest, just a pricier one.

e: recon is a better word, yes.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2018 16:51

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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GlyphGryph posted:

There was a genuinely good wincon system being thrown around in this thread a while back and wiz was part of the discussion, where you have multiple wincons that are more like "civilization goals/milestones" that you could accomplish and count as a "win" and comfortably stop playing with a sense of finality, even though it didnt make anyone else lose.

A concept that certain people in this this thread also had problems grasping (a win condition that is separate from a lose condition for other players? How does this make any sense in this game full of lose conditions that are not win conditions for other players!) but still resulted in a lot of really good and concrete ideas for possible wincons and ways to shape it to avoid the tedious bits and make them uniquely satisfying by allowing you to get a sort of epilogue if you stopped playing at that point.

I am assuming based on your response that absolutely nothing came of that.

Edit: I really should play the star trek mod at some point though, might be worth me doing that instead of upgrading to apoc since i assume its not gonna work in 2.0

~~I think Wiz was one of the people who didn't really seem to get it, but~~ I think that discussion may have led to the major ascension paths so hey, not exactly the worst outcome! E: I checked we all were actually in the same page, the big controversy was over the definition of the term "win condition". And Wiz explicitly used the word ascension so go team!

Splicer fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Feb 20, 2018

# ¿ Feb 20, 2018 17:16

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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turn off the TV posted:

uh

Your reading comprehension is extra bad today. I hope it's on purpose.

DatonKallandor posted:

The binary outcomes for anomalies aren't great yeah. Especially when the binary outcomes are "full success, bonus resources" and "scientist and ship blows up.". I'd be cool if there was some more user interaction and dynamicness to it than literally just having the player click the "roll dice" button. That's a huge amount of work though - not every anomaly can be horizon signal sadly. But just seeing what the potential fail outcome would be before we click the roll dice button would be a big improvement. That might actually make people take the risk on anomalies with higher fail rate then 5% - if they know that a bad roll won't blow up their scientist.

Risk and reward should be different rolls. You roll good on reward? Good thing happen! You roll bad on risk? Bad thing happen! You roll good on good and bad on bad? Both things happen! "We found a huge pile of minerals! Because the science ship crashed into it sorry."

Then you can separate out the Success and Failure rate buffs into different scientist traits.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2018 18:56

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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OwlFancier posted:

It's still on at paradox's own store, apparently.

It's not.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2018 19:09

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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OwlFancier posted:

You could have a generic "unknown ship" model. Possibly in a variety of size classes

Just a vague blur of the appropriate size and colour.

OwlFancier posted:

though that's likely to give away what kind of ship it is given that in Stellaris you don't deploy single cruisers. Which is less so in Aurora with its freeform design.

I would if I thought my enemies might think they were colony ships. But seriously, a just finished reinforcement heading from a shipyard to the main fleet is one case you'd see a solo cruiser, and one where you'd jump at the chance to take it out. Also since planets don't have orbital shipyards anymore a single cruiser could probably do a heck of a lot of damage. The main problem is that yeah, since it's claim -> colonise you'll not see a colony ship outside someone's territory and with claim markers in every system it'll be harder to not know you're in someone's system.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2018 19:40

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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turn off the TV posted:

I'd be okay with some visual effect representing sensor distortion/unclear data unless one of your own vessels actually comes close enough to get a visual identification, like how solar systems which you haven't reached but have sensor information on appear.

What about a blob representing all the ships roughly scaled based on their total size. So that could be one colony ship or 3 - 5 corvettes, and you don't get to find out what until you've probably already started firing.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2018 19:54

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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GlyphGryph posted:

I think that was one of the more popular ideas back when it was first floated. But if Wiz is one of the people who didnt "get it" I very much doubt we will ever see it.

I went back and checked, Wiz not seeming to get it was because of arguments over the definition of the phrase "Win Condition". It took a while for everyone to agree that "Winning" can exist without anyone else necessarily "Losing".

Omniblivion posted:

When you push the button, it... ...does a cool effect like nuke every other planet outside of your borders

This was exactly the kind of thing Wiz was saying "What gently caress no" about and what he thought people were looking for.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2018 20:39

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Aethernet posted:

On first contact, the original SOTS got it nearly perfect. If two scout ships encounter each other, they're forced into combat for at least ~4 minutes. During that time you stare at the other ship trying to figure out if it's going to fire first - or if you should - because losing a scout ship in the first few turns is a Big Deal and whoever fires first from an optimum angle has the best chance of winning.

Of course, if you don't fire first and they don't fire, then you can have a positive relationship to each others' advantage. It's a great Prisoner's Dilemma minigame.

Yeah, I was going to call out SotS1's standoffs as a great first contact experience.

Omniblivion posted:

I think I remember that "gently caress no" conversation, but it's a little foggy. Without going into a ton of details, my suggestion was just to plug in something after the crisis is defeated that can be researched for a final Galactic Wonder (for lack of a better term). Right now, after the Crisis, the game pretty much just stops until someone hits the planet or domination victory condition (a blank win screen).

Things could change a bit with the Jesus Patch but I feel like we're still going to hit a point where you have won but the game hasn't told you that you've won yet (IE: crushing everyone but not actually killed the last handful of xenos). It's usually at this point that I just quit out of those games and never touch them again. It'd be cool to have a button to push that ends the galaxy and either gives a super hard challenge (the aforementioned Super Crisis) or some random bonus and lore for your next playthrough with that race.

Without having any data on the topic, I would guess that the vast majority of time spent within Stellaris is in the Midgame, the point at which the game performs the best, and I wouldn't be opposed to gameplay loops that get us back there ASAP rather than just restarting the game once we get bored as it's pointless to go for a "win".

The thrust of the "gently caress no" is that it's not fun to lose because someone else did a thing that you in no way interacted with. The big source of confusion when this first came up was that you can do things that make you feel like you won that don't mean the other person has lost. If I'm playing Stellaris multiplayer and I decide my end goal is to complete a dyson sphere, if I complete the dyson sphere I can say "Yay I succeeded" and either keep playing or set my empire to AI control and then head off to bed, but the other players haven't "lost". So we were looking for more concrete "win", or rather, "personal success in the form of galactic dick-waving" conditions along those lines. Like, say, sending almost your entire race into the shroud, depopulating all your planets, and leaving you to either head off in "victory" or to continue playing as a tiny empire made up of your materialist die-hard pops who are now racing everyone else to take over the ruins of your former empire. Meanwhile one of your friends is trying to encode their synthesised consciousness to the quantum foam and your other friend is just slowly integrating half the galaxy into their galactic hive mind. Then the Praethorian show up.

"Press button, everyone else loses" is the antithesis of this.

Splicer fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Feb 21, 2018

# ¿ Feb 21, 2018 00:04

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Galaga Galaxian posted:

We need a new thread title. "To Serve Man" is two expansions old, though it still worked in a way with Synthetic Dawn given Rogue Servitors.

Stellaris - Apocalypse Chow

# ¿ Feb 21, 2018 09:57

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Torrannor posted:

I'm pretty sure Stellaris will be a better game when it's hyperlane only, but I did enjoy playing xenophobic pacifists who always had their borders closed and exclaves all over the galaxy. Which will be mostly impossible without wormhole drives.

Let me tell you about Gates.

Hammerstein posted:

Is there some meta or pseudo-science explanation about what differentiates hyperlane travel from warp travel ?

I mean, both require some kind of FTL drive to get from A to B in days instead of decades. So if I have an FTL drive, why do I need a hyperlane and what is it exactly ?

With Hyperlanes the conceit is that you don't generate FTL, you tap into a network that enables FTL. Or that FTL doesn't work except in specific places. Warp is an ATV, hyperlanes are a river network.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2018 11:14

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Apocalypse trailer but instead of earth it's new horizons.gif

# ¿ Feb 21, 2018 15:04

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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GunnerJ posted:

If there's one thing I don't like about hyperlanes, it's that you can see the whole galaxy-wide network of them right from the start. I get that this makes sense from a gameplay standpoint but personally I'd like it if you have to at least travel to a system before discovering where its hyperlanes lead to. But I get that this is probably better for a mod than core game design.

Would work well with the new sensors. Jump somewhere with basic sensors -> see all hyperlanes leading from that system. Jump with +1 sensors -> see each adjacent system and also all the hyperlanes leading off them.

Make it a slider!

# ¿ Feb 21, 2018 16:27

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Baronjutter posted:

Yeah this would be the best option. Keep the basic sliders on new game creation like galaxy size, rival empires, and so on, then have an "advanced" tab with like 100 sliders, many with their own sub tabs with more sliders.

Jokes on us, the new game start screen is just a collage of tiny burgers.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2018 17:54

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Libluini posted:

Also, Star Trek Warp is rather slow when compared to Stellaris, where you could traverse the entire galaxy in short order. There's a reason the Enterprise was on a five-year mission instead of on a fifty-year one.